Compass Airlines Flight 5887
Embraer ERJ 170-200 LR · Accident: birdstrike en route
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (KMSP) to Missoula Montana Airport (KMSO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11LA072
- 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 ERJ 170-200 LR
- Aircraft type
- Embraer ERJ-170
- 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
- N604CZ
- Operator
- Compass Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (KMSP), Minneapolis, MNTo Missoula Montana Airport (KMSO), Missoula, MT
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
The regional jet collided with a flock of large birds shortly after takeoff as it climbed through 5,000 feet mean sea level. The flight crew reported that, although there were no observed flight control or engine anomalies, they elected to return to the departure airport and the captain subsequently completed an uneventful visual approach and landing. A postaccident examination of the airframe revealed substantial damage to the radar dome and its underlying structural components. The forward pressure bulkhead web contained a dent and puncture. The left engine compressor section exhibited damage that was consistent with a bird strike.
Probable cause
The in-flight collision with a flock of birds during climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA072
- Event ID
- 20101116X51712
- Case number
- CEN11LA072
- 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: d7b36e7bde84cc7a3443599d730b480ec82f2cfb1bab330e06b98f873517a451; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:34:14.088Z.