Northwest Airlink Flight 2268
Fisher Brothers Aviation CASA C-212-CC · Pilot error
From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA87MA022
- 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
- 9 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 19
- Survivors
- 10
- 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
- 13 · 3 on the ground
- 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
- Flight
- ANK2268
- 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
- N160FB
- Operator
- Fisher Brothers Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, OHTo Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Northwest Airlink Flight 2268 was a commuter flight between Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan, just outside Detroit. The flight was operated by Fischer Brothers Aviation, doing business as Northwest Airlink, and was operated by a CASA C-212 aircraft. On March 4, 1987, the plane crashed while attempting to land. Nine of the 19 passengers and crew on board were killed in the crash.
Accident
At 2:30 p.m. after being cleared for a visual approach to Runway 21R and while just 60–70 feet above the ground, Flight 2268 banked left in a descent and then rolled right. The twin-engine turboprop aircraft struck the ramp area inside and to the left of the runway threshold, flipping over, and then striking a catering truck before bursting into flames.
Nine of the 19 people on board the aircraft died, including both pilots. Autopsies determined the cause of death to be smoke inhalation and burns. Federal investigators said the nine victims may not have died if their seat cushions had been treated with fire retardant. Three people on the ground were also injured in the accident.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The job of investigating the crash was made difficult due to the aircraft having neither a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder.
Shortly after the investigation was started, it was learned that Captain Sherer had been cited twice for unsafe flying. Records showed that he had had his license suspended for 15 days in 1979.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the accident was "the captain’s inability to control the airplane in an attempt to recover from an asymmetric power condition at low speed following his intentional use of the beta mode of propeller operation to descend and slow the airplane rapidly on final approach for landing. Factors that contributed to the accident were an unstabilized visual approach, the presence of a departing DC-9 on the runway, the desire to make a short field landing, and the higher-than-normal flight idle fuel flow settings of both engines. The lack of fire-blocking material in passenger seat cushions contributed to the severity of the injuries."
Text from the Wikipedia article “Northwest Airlink Flight 2268” (revision 1362797057, 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
THE CAPT MADE A STEEP, SHORT, FAST VISUAL APPROACH TO THE RUNWAY BEHIND A DEPARTING DC-9. THE EVIDENCE INDICATES THE CAPT PLACED THE POWER LEVERS INTO BETA MODE TO SLOW THE AIRCRAFT RAPIDLY AND MAKE A SHORT FIELD LANDING. AN ASYMMETRIC THRUST CONDITION RESULTED. THE AIRCRAFT WAS VERY CLOSE TO THE GROUND AND THE CAPT COULD NOT RECOVER PRIOR TO IMPACT. IMPACT FORCES WERE SURVIVABLE. HOWEVER, THE FATALITIES WERE ATTRIBUTED TO A POSTCRASH FIRE, LACK OF FIRE-BLOCKING MATERIAL, AND POORLY DESIGNED AIRCRAFT COMPONENTS. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED INCORRECT SPRINGS INSTALLED IN THE PROPELLERS AND HIGHER THAT NORMAL FUEL FLOW SETTINGS. THE EXAMINATION OF THE CERTIFICATION PROCESS INDICATED INEFFECTIVEMANAGEMENT OF BILATERAL TYPE CERTIFICATION BY THE FAA. (FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, SEE NTSB/AAR-88/08.)
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Northwest Airlink Flight 2268
- Revision
- 1362797057 · 2026-07-06 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7059928
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA87MA022
- Event ID
- 20001213X30414
- Case number
- DCA87MA022
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Northwest Airlink Flight 2268" (page 34233453, revision 1362797057); merged with NTSB case DCA87MA022 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA87MA022: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA87MA022
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA87MA022: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA87MA022: 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 DCA87MA022: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA87MA022: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA87MA022: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Northwest Airlink Flight 2268" and NTSB case DCA87MA022, 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.