American Eagle Airlines Flight 4176
Embraer EMB-145 · Incident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during landing
From John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN11IA369
- 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
Embraer EMB-145
- 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
- N607AE
- Operator
- American Eagle Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), Columbus, OHTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, IL
- 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilots reported that they felt one brake pedal fully release and then reapply during the landing roll. Air traffic control tower personnel saw a puff of smoke and asked the flight crew if a tire had blown on landing. The pilots taxied the airplane to a hold pad for further examination; however, the emergency brake would not hold the airplane stationary. The pilots also received caution messages for the brakes, and hydraulic fluid was observed on the tires and ground. An examination revealed the brake pressure plate and rotor failed. Separated brake parts were also found on the landing runway. Further examination of the incident brake and four other brakes revealed that they all contained varying levels of oxidation development. The brake manufacturer had previously provided the operator with a maintenance procedure which involved using a fingernail or a specified plastic tool to check brakes for oxidation. The operator developed and provided related training to its maintenance personnel based on the manufacturer's procedures. However, interviews with airline and contract maintenance personnel revealed that they were not familiar with the inspection and were not issued the plastic tool. Subsequently, the brake manufacturer and operator provided additional related training to the operator's maintenance personnel, and the operator stocked their maintenance system with the specified tool.
Probable cause
The overheat and failure the brake during landing due to oxidation of the brake rotors, which went undetected by maintenance personnel. Contributing to the accident was maintenance personnel’s lack of familiarity with detailed brake oxidation inspection procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11IA369
- Event ID
- 20110603X52158
- Case number
- CEN11IA369
- 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, 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: 9adec9a5b003c57c7e5ba314b54f110c44887b0d8d4689ecca724386498fe22e; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:14:36.450Z.