American Eagle Flight 5452
American Eagle (FLT.5452) CASA C-212-CC · Improper maintenance, pilot error
From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU) to Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (MAZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA87MA030
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 6
- Survivors
- 4
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 4
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
CASA C-212-CC
- Aircraft type
- Casa C-212
- 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
- N432CA
- Operator
- American Eagle (FLT.5452)
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PRTo Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport (MAZ), MAYAGUEZ, PR
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe 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 in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, adjustment, improper
- Fuel system, fuel control
- Propeller system/accessories › Asymmetrical
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
American Eagle Flight 5452, officially operating as Executive Air Charter Flight 5452, was a commuter flight between Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Eugenio María de Hostos Airport in Mayagüez. The flight was operated by Executive Air Charter, doing business as American Eagle, and was operated by a CASA C-212 Aviocar aircraft. Visual meteorological conditions were present as the plane made its final approach to runway 9 at Mayagüez on May 8, 1987. The plane crashed 600 feet short of the runway, destroying the aircraft and killing both pilots, but leaving the four passengers with only minor injuries.
Accident
Flight 5452 took off five minutes late, at 6:20 am, from San Juan with four passengers aboard. Half an hour later, as the flight was landing, witnesses reported hearing the engine make irregular sounds, and then observed the plane bank to the left and impact the ground. It was initially reported that the pilot lost control while landing. The plane crashed short of the runway and slammed into the airport perimeter fence. After the crash, a fire broke out, which was contained within minutes by airport firefighters.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Early similarities were drawn between Flight 5452 and that of Northwest Airlink Flight 2268, another CASA C-212 which crashed in Detroit earlier that year. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated. The investigation was hindered by the lack of flight data or voice recorders, which were not required on commuter aircraft at the time, and by lack of radar data, as the Mayagüez control tower had been shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration due to budgetary constraints. Airport facilities, however, were not a factor in the crash.
The NTSB determined early on that the captain had flown an unstable approach, descending steeply and too close to the runway. As a result, the captain would not have had sufficient time to correct problems as they arose. Furthermore, the plane's flaps were found to be in the up position, which is improper procedure. The NTSB could only speculate that either the pilots forgot to set the flaps, or that they incorrectly retracted the flaps while attempting to go-around. The flap-setting error could have contributed to a stall.
Ultimately, the cause of the crash was not blamed on pilot error, although that was a contributing factor, but rather on maintenance issues at Executive Air Charter. Pilots on prior flights flying the accident aircraft had reported difficulties with the engine thrust, but few proper repairs were done. It seemed likely that one of the engines slipped to idle, causing asymmetrical thrust and a loss of speed.
The NTSB concluded that Executive Air Charter's scheduled maintenance and inspections of the airplane were not performed in conformance with its approved maintenance program, and that the manner in which required inspections of maintenance tasks were recorded and the subsequent approval of the airplane for return to service were not conducted in accordance with the proper maintenance practices.
Text from the Wikipedia article “American Eagle Flight 5452” (revision 1344419556, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
AFTER SEVERAL MAINTENANCE ADJUSTMENTS OF THE RIGHT PROPELLER AND FLIGHT IDLE FUEL FLOW, THE AIRCRAFT WAS TEST FLOWN AND RELEASED FOR FLIGHT. SEVERAL PILOTS CONTINUED TO NOTE DESCREPANCIES CONCERNING THE RIGHT PROPELLER SYSTEM. ADJUSTMENTS WERE MADE AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS AGAIN RELEASED FOR FLIGHT. AT MAYAGUEZ, THE CREW MADE A SHORT, STEEP APPROACHTO THE RUNWAY. ON VERY SHORT FINAL WITNESSES SAID THEY HEARD SOUNDS RESEMBLING A PROPELLER IN REVERSE THRUST. THE AIRCRAFT MADE AN EXTREME YAW TO THE RIGHT, FOLLOWED BY A LEFT BANK, THEN A RIGHT BANK. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED RIGHT WING FIRST. THE POST-ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT PROPELLER HAD BEEN IN THE BETA RANGE. THE RIGHT ENGINE FLIGHT IDLE FUEL FLOW WAS EXCESSIVELY HIGH. EXAM OF THE MAINTENANCE PROGRAM SHOWED DEFICIENCIES IN THE MANAGEMENT, SUPERVISION, AND HANDLING OF PILOT-REPORTED PROBLEMS. THE INVESTIGATION ALSO FOUND THE FAA MANAGEMENT OF THE BILATERAL TYPE CERTIFICATION OF THE C-212-CC INEFFECTIVE. (FOR FURTHER INFORMATION SEE NTSB/AAR-88/07.)
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: American Eagle Flight 5452
- Article
- American Eagle Flight 5452
- Revision
- 1344419556 · 2026-03-20 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4743649
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA87MA030
- Event ID
- 20001213X30904
- Case number
- DCA87MA030
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "American Eagle Flight 5452" (page 32448817, revision 1344419556); merged with NTSB case DCA87MA030 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA87MA030: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA87MA030
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA87MA030: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA87MA030: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA87MA030: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA87MA030: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "American Eagle Flight 5452" and NTSB case DCA87MA030, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- 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.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N432CA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.