ATL04LA078 · Swearingen SA-226T
Swearingen SA-226T · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Butler Co Regional Airport - Hogan Field (HAO) to 3M3 · Collegedale, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA078
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Swearingen SA-226T
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-226
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N70FC
- Operator
- William D. Fisher · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Butler Co Regional Airport - Hogan Field (HAO), Butler, OHTo 3M3 · Collegedale, TN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · landing roll
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control on ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Other maintenance personnel › Material inadequate
- Pilot in command › Nosewheel steering, not available
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot landed on runway 03 and began slowing the airplane down. He applied brakes and started using the nose wheel tiller for steering. The airplane veered to the right and the pilot lost directional control of the airplane. The airplane went off the right side of the runway, collided with a ditch, and the nose wheel collapsed. Examination of the flight control system, brakes, and reverse thrust revealed no anomalies. Examination of the nose wheel steering revealed the steering clutches were not grounded, and the grounding stud for the clutches were loose. The nut was screwed on the screw about 3 turns. Pressure was applied to wire number 717-16N and a ground was obtained. When the pressure was released no ground was obtained. The left side console wiring was required to have been inspected during the last Letter Check, " B" Inspection on December 17, 2002. No work sheets for the inspection were located. Review of the logbooks revealed no maintenance had been performed in this area.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain directional control due to the inadequate grounding of the nose wheel steering clutches, as a result of inadequate maintenance inspection by other maintenance personnel to ensure the nose wheel steering clutches were grounded. A related factor was the ditch.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA078
- Event ID
- 20040305X00270
- Case number
- ATL04LA078
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 015654ea5c2102eaff657d31aeecd308da6e12a00da41463bc0e3f6e695da65e; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:54:21.050Z.