Flightline Flight 101
Flightline Barcelona Swearingen SA226-AT Merlin IVA · Loss of control for undetermined reasons; possible lightning strike
From Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN) to Oran Es-Sénia (Ahmed Ben Bella) International Airport (ORN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA02WA004
- 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
- 10 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 10
- 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
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Not recorded
Swearingen SA226-AT Merlin IVA
- Flight
- FTL101
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA226
- 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
- EC-GDV
- Operator
- Flightline Barcelona
- Onboard fatalities
- 10
- Route
- From Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)To Oran Es-Sénia (Ahmed Ben Bella) International Airport (ORN)
- 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
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
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
Flightline Flight 101 was an international flight from Barcelona El-Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain to Ahmed Ben Bella Airport in Oran, Algeria. It crashed into the sea, probably due to a lightning strike leading to a loss of electrical power or systems failure.
Flight
The aircraft took off from Barcelona-El Prat Airport at 10:18. It flew normally in the direction of Valencia before the last radio contact at 10:38 and disappeared from radar screens 4 minutes later, probably as a result of total electrical failure caused by a lightning strike. In their final contact with air traffic control, the pilot said that they were deviating from the flight route to avoid weather. Any loss of electrical power could have rendered many systems inoperable, such as elevator trim, lighting and instruments, anti-ice and navigation. The aircraft then impacted the water at a steep pitch angle, as a result of either loss of control or spatial disorientation. The wreckage was found around 60 km away from Castellón.
Investigation and cause
Cause
Investigators noted two instances where an electrical failure occurred on board an SA-226/227 due to a lightning strike. On February 8, 1988, Nürnberger Flugdienst Flight 108 broke up in mid-air after the pilots became disoriented due to a loss of electrical power caused by a lightning strike. Later in November 1991, another aircraft suffered a lightning strike and a total electrical failure. However the crew managed to restore power and land safely.
Considering this and the loss of radar contact, investigators concluded that the cause of the accident could not be determined, but stated that a likely scenario was
Text from the Wikipedia article “Flightline Flight 101” (revision 1340654234, 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: Flightline Flight 101
- Article
- Flightline Flight 101
- Revision
- 1340654234 · 2026-02-26 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q92555344
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA02WA004
- Event ID
- 20011011X02075
- Case number
- DCA02WA004
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Flightline Flight 101" (page 70948835, revision 1340654234); merged with NTSB case DCA02WA004 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- 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 DCA02WA004
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Flightline Flight 101" and NTSB case DCA02WA004, matched by the same aircraft maker and place and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.