Champlain Enterprises Flight 4776
Bombardier Inc DHC 8 202 · Incident: fire/smoke (non-impact) on approach
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Bradley International Airport (BDL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ENG15IA024
- 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
Bombardier Inc DHC 8 202
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier 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
- N363PH
- Operator
- Champlain Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Bradley International Airport (BDL), Windsor Locks, CT
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 1998)
- 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 · IFR initial approach
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane suffered an in-flight fire at the right windshield terminal block while on approach to the destination airport. The flight crew donned oxygen masks, declared an emergency, landed without incident, and performed an emergency evacuation.
Examination of the windshield revealed that it had been installed on the airplane since manufacture more than 17 years prior to the incident, which far exceeded the average life of 8.2 years reported by the windshield manufacturer. The windshield exhibited typical signs of aging with ample evidence of moisture ingression into the laminate around the edges of the windshield. The aging discrepancies noted were within the published limits and did not contribute to the failure. The fire damage was concentrated in an area between the upper edge of the terminal block and the lower edge of the windshield gasket where the power wire was routed. The power wire was melted through in this area but remained soldered to the bottom of the terminal block indicating an arcing failure of the power wire. The damage and melting precluded determining if there was any pre-existing damage to the power wire prior to the incident. The arcing of the power wire produced enough localized heating to melt the glass and cause the fracture of the inner glass pane.
Examination of the maintenance records showed that the operator was in compliance with all recommended inspections from the airplane manufacturer, and the most recent inspection occurred more than 2 years and 3,500 flight hours prior to the incident with no discrepancies. The windshield manufacturer recommends inspection of the windshields at intervals significantly less than the airplane manufacturer.
The crew reported at least two attempts to extinguish the fire, but the fire continued, eventually extinguishing itself. The windshield heat selector switch was found in the normal position which would continue to provide power to the windshield heating system. Switching the windshield heat selector to off would have cut power to the circuit eliminating the arcing and fire. There is no training or guidance provided to the crew for windshield arcing, smoke, fire, or overheat events.
Probable cause
The arcing failure of the windshield heat power wire on the right windshield due to unknown reasons. Contributing to the severity of the fire was the lack of training or guidance provided to the crew for selecting the windshield heat to off that would cut power to the circuit.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ENG15IA024
- Event ID
- 20150605X52542
- Case number
- ENG15IA024
- 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. 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: 22466ff6bc93f124f1e2acebd7a130becd25f1bd9bd5969ae83820b2d3112676; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:23:34.443Z.