Air Midwest Airlines Beech 1900D accident
Beech 1900D · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during landing
From Salina Municipal Airport (SLN) to Manhattan Regional Airport (MHK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA086
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Beech 1900D
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N155ZV
- Operator
- Air Midwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salina Municipal Airport (SLN), Salina, KSTo Manhattan Regional Airport (MHK), Manhattan, KS
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/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
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was substantially damaged when the nose wheel collapsed as the pilot attempted to taxi back onto the runway after departing the pavement during landing rollout on runway 3. The nose wheel steering was inoperative and had been deferred in accordance with the operator's Minimum Equipment List (MEL). In that situation, the nose wheel was in the "free castor mode." The MEL states that directional control is to be maintained by using brakes and differential power. The pilot reported that the landing touch down was on the centerline, however, shortly afterward the aircraft encountered an "overwhelming" wind gust which caused it to weathervane to the left. He reported that he applied full right rudder and differential right braking which was effective in stopping the aircraft's drift. However, the aircraft encountered a second "much stronger and sustained" gust, which caused the aircraft to "veer strongly to the left." His subsequent efforts to maintain directional control through the use of differential braking and differential engine thrust were insufficient to keep the aircraft from departing the runway pavement. The aircraft came to rest in the soft grass adjacent to the runway. The pilot attempted to taxi back onto the runway, however, the nose wheel contacted the edge of the pavement and collapsed. Distinct ruts were observed in the soft turf adjacent to the left side of the runway. The nose wheel tire track approached the edge of the pavement at approximately a 20-degree angle and terminated at the edge of the runway. The track was approximately eight inches deep relative to the level of the runway pavement. The published maximum demonstrated crosswind component for the aircraft was 22 knots. The operator did not impose a crosswind component limitation on operations in general or on operations with the nose wheel steering inoperative under the MEL. Surface winds provided to the flight crew by the control tower were 310 degrees at 23 knots, gusting to 30 knots.
Probable cause
The captain's improper decision due to his attempt to taxi back onto the runway after coming to a stop in the grass, and the resulting collapse of nose landing gear. Contributing factors were the inoperative nose wheel steering, the pilot's inability to maintain directional control during the landing roll due to the crosswind, and the high crosswind component. Additional factors were the uneven transition between the grass and the runway pavement, as well as the soft grass.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA086
- Event ID
- 20040319X00351
- Case number
- CHI04LA086
- 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, coordinates. 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: 14d418ad4e7bae740293b8a61c8de868433ed104410c41fc7ec53dcd16528483; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:28:37.104Z.