Arrow Air McDonnell Douglas MD11 incident
McDonnell Douglas MD11 · Incident
From Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCEL) to Guaraní International Airport (SGES)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's date, location and departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA09WA075
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- 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
- Not recorded
McDonnell Douglas MD11
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD11
- 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
- N384WA
- Operator
- Arrow Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (SCEL), BatcoTo Guaraní International Airport (SGES), Ciudad del Este
- 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
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe 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
- Not recorded
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
On April 16, 2009, an Arrow Cargo, MD-11F, registration N384WA, experienced a left nosewheel separation during its approach to Arturo Merino Benitez Airport (SCEL), Santiago, Chile. There were no injuries to the 5 crew members onboard, and the airplane was not damaged. The cargo flight originated from Ciudad del Este - Guarani International Airport (SGES), Ciudad del Este, Paraguay.
The investigation is being conducted by the Chile Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC). The NTSB has assigned an Accredited Representative to assist the investigation under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13 as the Country of Manufacture and Design of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA09WA075
- Event ID
- 20090828X50844
- Case number
- DCA09WA075
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ce93f9a604dff0328097b121d3037abb037a58b609b4d4274e644eae0d133a40; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:51:45.762Z.