Air Caraïbes Flight 1501
de Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter · Thrust asymmetry caused by pilot error
From Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) to St. Jean Airport (SBH)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01WA138
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 20 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- Occupants
- 19
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 1 · all 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
- 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 Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter
- Flight
- TX1501
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-6
- 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
- F-OGES
- Operator
- Air Caraïbes
- Onboard fatalities
- 19
- Route
- From Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM)To St. Jean Airport (SBH)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Air Caraïbes Flight 1501 (TX1501/FWI1501) was a scheduled international passenger flight, flying from Princess Juliana International Airport in the Dutch overseas territory of Sint Maarten to Saint Barthélemy Airport which was in the French overseas region of Guadeloupe at that time. The flight was operated by Air Caraïbes, a Caribbean regional airline, using a de Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter. On 24 March 2001, during an approach to Saint Barthélemy Airport, the DHC-6 Twin Otter banked steeply to the left and crashed into a house, killing all 19 passengers and crew on board. One person on the ground was also killed in the explosions that followed.
The crash was the third deadliest plane crash in Guadeloupe, behind Air France Flight 212 and Air France Flight 117, and was the 11th deadliest involving a Twin Otter.
Investigation by the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (or BEA) concluded that the cause of the crash was due to an error by the flight crew in managing the plane's thrust lever. During its final approach to Saint Barthélemy, the crew caused one of the aircraft's engines to reverse by moving the thrust lever back to the "beta" range, creating a thrust asymmetry which caused the aircraft to bank steeply to the left and crash.
According to the BEA, this was the first fatal accident in the Twin Otter whereby an accidental thrust selection caused a propeller to enter the Beta range. The investigation was hampered by the lack of a flight recorder on the plane. After the crash, the BEA made a mandatory recommendation to equip every transport plane with at least one flight recorder.
Crash
While flying above the western slope of La Tourmente Pass, the aircraft suddenly banked steeply to the left. Numerous eyewitnesses including an Aerodrome Flight Information Service (AFIS) worker claimed that Flight 1501 then rapidly lost altitude and crashed onto a house, with a massive explosion following immediately after impact. Emergency services quickly arrived to the scene and cordoned off the area. All 19 people on board were killed instantly in the crash and an elderly man, identified as Augustin Questel, who lived in the house with his wife, died from the subsequent fire and explosion. His wife was alive but slightly injured and was taken to hospital.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
As the crash occurred within the French territory, the BEA was responsible for the investigation. The BEA sent two field investigators to the crash site and later sent four investigators to Pointe-à-Pitre on 25 March. As the aircraft was manufactured in Canada, the Canadian TSB joined the investigation with the assistance from Bombardier and Pratt and Whitney Canada. The American NTSB also joined the investigation and sent a representative.
According to Chevallier the aircraft was not equipped with a black box, and thus investigators had to rely on observations of air traffic controller recordings, eyewitnesses, wreckage observation and their best guess on what might have happened on Flight 1501. Soon after the crash, airport officials claimed it was caused by mechanical failure. One witness stated that he heard an engine "sputtering" before the aircraft slammed onto the house.
The western approach to Saint Barthélemy Airport crosses the Col de la Tourmente just before the runway, requiring pilots to have special certification to land there. Aircraft approaching the runway must make a steep descent and fly low over houses before landing, with no night flights and all aircraft to be equipped with radio.
During the first phase of the investigation, investigators inspected the wreckage of the plane. Initial examination revealed that there were no signs of abnormalities with the plane's controls. Inspection of the plane's propellers also revealed that both propellers were delivering significant power during the crash. Due to the severity of the impact, investigators could not take a fuel sample from the wreckage. During their inspection they found two video cameras at the crash site.
Closer observation of the plane's propellers revealed that the left propeller had a pitch setting of at least 20.4°, that is to say a pitch above flight idle. The right propeller had a different pitch setting for each of the blades, settings likely due to less-violent secondary impacts to the powerplant at the moment of impact. Consequently, the values noted were unusable.
Conclusion
Investigators then made the conclusion of the cause of the crash:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Air Caraïbes Flight 1501” (revision 1357105741, 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
Sources
Wikipedia article: Air Caraïbes Flight 1501
- Article
- Air Caraïbes Flight 1501
- Revision
- 1357105741 · 2026-05-31 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q28971917
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record MIA01WA138
- Event ID
- 20010507X00889
- Case number
- MIA01WA138
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Air Caraïbes Flight 1501" (page 53509408, revision 1357105741); merged with NTSB case MIA01WA138 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record MIA01WA138
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Air Caraïbes Flight 1501" and NTSB case MIA01WA138, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia'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: coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.