Express Jet Airlines Embraer EMB-145XR accident
Embraer EMB-145XR · Accident: birdstrike on approach
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH) to Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA395
- 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
Embraer EMB-145XR
- Aircraft type
- Embraer EMB-145
- 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
- N14105
- Operator
- Express Jet Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH), Houston, TXTo Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern for the destination airport, the flying pilot transferred his focus from the instrument panel to outside the airplane. Immediately thereafter, he noticed a flock/formation of large birds directly ahead. With the airplane in such close proximity of the birds, he had no time to take evasive action. One of the birds impacted the airplane just aft of the nose cone. The bird, which was later tentatively identified as a White Pelican, penetrated the airplane's skin and entered the forward avionics bay. Neither flightcrew member had seen the birds in time for evasive action to be taken.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with a bird while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern during a visual approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA395
- Event ID
- 20100811X20501
- Case number
- WPR10LA395
- 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: 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: c495e14b792694a2910c695fb5becc399dc2d2f26f145e22910e912d7d997edf; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:49:28.661Z.