ENG13IA020 · Embraer ERJ-145
ExpressJet Airlines Embraer ERJ-145 · Incident: loss of control on ground during landing
From an unrecorded airport to George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ENG13IA020
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Embraer ERJ-145
- Aircraft type
- Embraer ERJ-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
- N12922
- Operator
- ExpressJet Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TX
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft experienced several uncommanded swerve events during multiple landings between the dates of 3/19/2013 and 3/29/2013. In each case the crew was able to regain and maintain runway heading. Maintenance troubleshooting led to the removal of the nose wheel steering manifold assembly on 3/29/2013. There were no further reports of uncommanded swerving or pulling to the left after this component was removed.
Component level testing found that there were anomalies with the performance of the electrohydraulic servo valve (EHSV) within the nose wheel steering manifold assembly after being cold soaked. A teardown and examination of the EHSV identified the presence of a clear gel-like substance between the armature and the coil. Pressure gain plots showed that hysteresis improved following the removal of the substance from the armature. Since no other anomalies were identified with the EHSV during the examination, and since the removal of the gel-like substance improved the performance of the EHSV during bench testing, it is likely that this substance, when cold soaked, influenced the movement of the armature such that the EHSV commanded a left turn.
Probable cause
The uncommanded left deflection of the airplane's nose wheel due to a malfunction of the electrohydraulic servo valve (EHSV) within the nose wheel steering manifold assembly. The reason for the malfunction could not be determined; however, a foreign substance was found between the armature and coil of the EHSV that once removed improved the performance of the unit. It is unknown how the foreign substance was introduced to this location.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ENG13IA020
- Event ID
- 20130405X10333
- Case number
- ENG13IA020
- 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, coordinates, 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: ba6d79f889deb182452907c97e2cd7bad414a737a4da8e6cdf78cdcb8748b036; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:13:47.589Z.