PSA Airlines Dornier DO-328-100 incident
Dornier DO-328-100 · Incident during initial climb
From Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04IA116
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Dornier DO-328-100
- Aircraft type
- Dornier DO-328
- 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
- N441JS
- Operator
- PSA Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE), Allentown, PATo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Door, passenger › Open
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the landing gear was retracted during takeoff, the flightcrew heard a "loud boom," and received an "unsafe door condition" warning. They confirmed that the main cabin door had opened, declared an emergency, and returned to land uneventfully. The flight attendant was seated adjacent to the door handle during the takeoff; however, she could not recall if she may have inadvertently rested her arm on the door handle while seated. Examination of the door and its locking mechanisms revealed no mechanical deficiencies. Data downloaded from the airplane's flight data recorder (FDR) revealed the "Doors" parameter indicated "Open" approximately 1.7 seconds after the Air/Ground parameter indicated "Air". No additional anomalies were noted.
Probable cause
The opening of the main cabin door after takeoff, for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04IA116
- Event ID
- 20040527X00677
- Case number
- NYC04IA116
- 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, damage. 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: b33d32af515b540bfc0bba9e32804ceb8818cabcf0c7e5069cd98df154a56942; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:25:30.276Z.