Piedmont Airlines Flight 4206
de Havilland DHC 8 102 103 · Accident: birdstrike during takeoff
From Harrisburg International Airport (MDT) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA14CA147
- 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
de Havilland DHC 8 102 103
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-8
- 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
- N815EX
- Operator
- Piedmont Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harrisburg International Airport (MDT), Harrisburg, PATo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PA
- Aircraft age
- About 22 years (built 1992)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
On August 10, 2014 at about 0605 eastern daylight time, a deHavilland DHC-8-100, N815EX, operated by Piedmont Airlines d.b.a. USAirways Express flight 4206, struck a flock of geese during the takeoff roll from Middletown Harrisburg International Airport (KMDT), Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There were no injuries to the passengers or crew and the airplane sustained damage. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight between KMDT and Philadelphia International Airport (KPHL), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The captain was the pilot flying and the first officer was the pilot monitoring. According to the flight crew, about 15 seconds into the takeoff roll and prior to V1, the captain observed a large group of geese flying from right to left in front of the airplane. He immediately initiated a rejected takeoff as the airplane impacted multiple geese on the front windshield and the right engine propeller, which caused a severe vibration. The flight crew shut down the right engine as the airplane slowed and returned to the gate.
Examination of the airplane indicated damage to the right propeller, a broken passenger window, and damage to the fuselage skin and stringers near the broken window.
Probable cause
the airplanes collision with geese during the takeoff roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA14CA147
- Event ID
- 20140815X53015
- Case number
- DCA14CA147
- 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: 0423cbd3bb3338da17d5867bc7a940136daabc84489e79305e080816f663a299; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:38:58.230Z.