Empire Airlines Flight 8284
Aerospatiale Alenia ATR 42-320 · Unstabilized approach, pilot error
From Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW) to Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09MA142
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 2
- Survivors
- 2
- 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
- 2
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aerospatiale Alenia ATR 42-320
- Flight
- EM8284
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale Alenia ATR-42
- 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
- N902FX
- Operator
- Empire Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW), Fort Worth, TXTo Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB), Lubbock, TX
- 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 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Empire Airlines Flight 8284 was a cargo flight operated by Empire Airlines for FedEx Feeder from Fort Worth Alliance Airport to Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport, Texas. On January 27, 2009, it crashed on final approach to its destination. Both crew members survived with minor injuries but the aircraft was written off.
Accident
The aircraft approached Lubbock International Airport at around 4:30 am Central Standard Time in freezing mist.
During the approach, a flight control problem prevented deployment of the flaps. The first officer continued the approach while the captain attempted to fix the flaps issue. Neither crew member monitored the airspeed, and the aircraft began descending at over 2000 ft per minute, leading to a "Pull Up" warning. The crew pulled up 17 seconds after the initial alarm. The aircraft then entered an aerodynamic stall and crashed. The aircraft landed short of the runway threshold, and skidded 1000 m down and off runway 17R. A small fire began shortly after.
Airport officials said that weather conditions did not contribute to the accident.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the cause of the accident. The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder showed that the crew continued the landing after the flaps failed to deploy rather than conducting a go-around. The crew also failed to apply maximum engine thrust immediately after the stall, waiting 17 seconds after an TAWS warning had sounded before applying thrust. In postaccident interviews, the captain said that he had sleep fatigue before the flight due to "high-workload situations" which affected his performance. After the investigation was completed the NTSB released their final report in 2011.
It concluded with investigators stating that "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the flight crew's failure to monitor and maintain a minimum safe airspeed while executing an instrument approach in icing conditions, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at low altitude. Contributing to the accident were 1) the flight crew's failure to follow published standard operating procedures in response to a flap anomaly, 2) the captain's decision to continue with the unstabilized approach, 3) the flight crew's poor crew resource management, and 4) fatigue due to the time of day in which the accident occurred and a cumulative sleep debt, which likely impaired the captain's performance."
Text from the Wikipedia article “Empire Airlines Flight 8284” (revision 1360360186, 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 Safety Board’s full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/A_Acc1.htm. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-11/02.
On January 27, 2009, about 0437 central standard time, an Avions de Transport Régional Aerospatiale Alenia ATR 42 320, N902FX, operating as Empire Airlines flight 8284, was on an instrument approach when it crashed short of the runway at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport, Lubbock, Texas. The captain sustained serious injuries, and the first officer sustained minor injuries. The airplane was substantially damaged. The airplane was registered to Federal Express Corporation and operated by Empire Airlines, Inc., as a 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 supplemental cargo flight. The flight departed from Fort Worth Alliance Airport, Fort Worth, Texas, about 0313. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed, and an instrument flight rules flight plan was filed.
Probable cause
The flight crew's failure to monitor and maintain a minimum safe airspeed while executing an instrument approach in icing conditions, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at low altitude. Contributing to the accident were 1) the flight crew's failure to follow published standard operating procedures in response to a flap anomaly, 2) the captain's decision to continue with the unstabilized approach, 3) the flight crew's poor crew resource management, and 4) fatigue due to the time of day in which the accident occurred and a cumulative sleep debt, which likely impaired the captain's performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Empire Airlines Flight 8284
- Article
- Empire Airlines Flight 8284
- Revision
- 1360360186 · 2026-06-21 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q48817678
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN09MA142
- Event ID
- 20090127X92950
- Case number
- CEN09MA142
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Empire Airlines Flight 8284" (page 56550750, revision 1360360186); merged with NTSB case CEN09MA142 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record CEN09MA142: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17); country from NTSB record CEN09MA142
- Map position
- NTSB record CEN09MA142: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record CEN09MA142: 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 CEN09MA142: operated under Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record CEN09MA142: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record CEN09MA142: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Empire Airlines Flight 8284" and NTSB case CEN09MA142, 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.