Aerolineas Ejecutivas S A De CV Hawker 400 XP accident
Hawker 400 XP · Accident: ground collision during landing
From El Paso International Airport (KELP) to Telluride Regional Airport (KTEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA067
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Hawker 400 XP
- Aircraft type
- Hawker 400
- 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
- XA-MEX
- Operator
- Aerolineas Ejecutivas S A De CV
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (KELP), El Paso, TXTo Telluride Regional Airport (KTEX), Telluride, CO
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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
- Ground collision
- 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 › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilots were conducting an international chartered flight in the small, twin-engine jet with five passengers onboard. Since the weather at the destination was marginal, the flight crew had discussed an alternate airport in case weather conditions required a missed approach at their destination. As the airplane neared the non-towered destination airport, the flight crew received updated weather information, which indicated that conditions had improved. Upon contacting the center controller, the crew was asked if they had the weather and NOTAMS for the destination airport. The crew reported that they received the current weather information, but did not state if they had NOTAM information. The controller responded by giving the flight a heading for the descent and sequence into the airport. The controller did not provide NOTAM information to the pilots. About 2 minutes later, airport personnel entered a NOTAM via computer closing the runway, effective immediately, for snow removal.
Although the NOTAM was electronically routed to the controller, the controller's system was not designed to automatically alert the controller of a new NOTAM; the controller needed to select a display screen on the equipment that contained the information. At the time of the accident, the controller's workload was considered heavy.
About 8 minutes after the runway closure NOTAM was issued, the controller cleared the airplane for the approach. The flight crew then canceled their instrument flight plan with the airport in sight, but did not subsequently transmit on or monitor the airport's common traffic advisory frequency, which was reportedly being monitored by airport personnel and the snow removal equipment operator. The airplane landed on the runway and collided with a snow removal vehicle about halfway down the runway. The flight crew reported they did not see the snow removal equipment.
The accident scenario is consistent with the controllers not recognizing new NOTAM information in a timely manner due to equipment limitations, and the pilots not transmitting or monitoring the common traffic advisory frequency. Additionally, the accident identifies a potential problem for flight crews when information critical to inflight decision-making changes while en route, and problems when controller workload interferes with information monitoring and dissemination.
Probable cause
The limitations of the air traffic control equipment that prevented the controller's timely recognition of NOTAM information that was effective immediately and resulted in the issuance of an approach clearance to a closed runway. Also causal was the pilots' omission to monitor and transmit their intentions on the airport common frequency. Contributing to the accident was the controller's heavy workload and the limitations of the NOTAM system to distribute information in a timely manner.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA067
- Event ID
- 20151224X81125
- Case number
- CEN16LA067
- 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: bc331988ca596b26828189789cafa683230cf96d66b0fb7aea21805832c39527; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:03:18.688Z.