Ryan Air Services Flight 103
Beech 1900C · Lost control on landing due to incorrect loading
From Kodiak Airport (KDK) to Homer Airport (HOM)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA88MA005
- 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
- 18 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 21
- Survivors
- 3
- 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
- 3
- 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
Beech 1900C
- Flight
- 7S103
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N401RA
- Operator
- Ryan Air Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kodiak Airport (KDK), Kodiak, AKTo Homer Airport (HOM)
- 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 · IFR final approach
- 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
- Aircraft weight and balance › Improper
- Copilot/second pilot › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Lowering of flaps › Initiated
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On 23 November 1987, Ryan Air Services Flight 103, a Beechcraft 1900C operating a domestic flight in Alaska from Kodiak Airport to Homer Airport, crashed near the runway at Homer Airport, while approaching it. Out of the 21 passengers and crew on board, 18 were killed. It was determined that the cause of the crash was an improper loading, which led to a loss of control during landing.
Accident
At 5:42 pm local time, the aircraft took off fully loaded, with 19 passengers on board and 651 kg (1435 lb) of cargo, from runway 07 at Kodiak Airport. The aircraft had difficulties becoming airborne, and had to accelerate to 15 knots over V1 speed to lift off from the runway. The cruise went uneventfully. At 6:19 pm local time, Flight 103 was cleared to land following a DME approach, after a preceding plane cancelled an instrument approach. At 6:25 pm, the Homer Airport tower received a distress signal from the aircraft. Witnesses on the ground reported that Flight 103's approach did not appear to be normal. When the plane was about 24 meters (25 yards) from the runway, its wings rolled back and forth, and the aircraft started to fall steeply towards the ground. Flight 103 impacted terrain in a flat attitude, struck an airport perimeter fence, slid on its belly for a few meters (yards), and then stopped. Initially, the captain and 13 passengers were killed. The first officer and a passenger died while being transported to the hospitals, two other passengers died the next day in Anchorage. In the end, only three passengers of the 21 aboard survived. All fatalities were due to the blunt force of the impact.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators found out that the plane was overweight by 30kg (66 lb) more than requested by the crew. During the landing approach, flap extension caused a loss of control by causing the aircraft's center of gravity to become displaced far aft. Icing conditions were present, and according to the NTSB may have contributed to an accelerated stall. The final report stated that the cause of the crash was improper loading, caused by the failure of the crew supervising it, which caused a loss of control in a landing configuration. Recommendations made by the NTSB were all regarding the internal configuration of the aircraft, which contributed in great part to the fatalities.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ryan Air Services Flight 103” (revision 1354730063, 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
DRG ARR, THE ACFT (RYAN FLT 103) CRASHED SHORT OF RWY 3. THE FUSELAGE STAYED INTACT DRG IMPACT, BUT THE BELLY STRUCTURE WAS COMPRESSED & VERTICAL DECELERATION FORCES EXCEEDED THE DESIGN CAPABILITY OF THE SEATS. RESCUE PSNL HAD DIFFICULTY SHUTTING OFF THE ACFT'S ELEC PWR WHICH DELAYED REMOVAL OF THE 1ST OFFICER (F/O) FM THE ACFT. AN INV REVEALED THE ACFT WAS LOADED WITH APRX 600 LBS MORE CARGO THAN THE F/O HAD REQUESTED. THE CENTER-OF-GRAVITY (CG) WAS 8 TO 11 INCHES BEHINDTHE ALLOWABLE AFT LIMIT & THE FLT CREW DID NOT COMPLY WITH COMPANY & FAA PROCEDURES IN COMPUTING THE CG. DRG FLT, UP TO 3/8 INCH OF ICE ACCUMULATED ON THE ACFT'S LEADING EDGES. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THE CREW LOST CONTROL OF THE ACFT AS THE FLAPS WERE LOWERED. THE RGT FLAP ACTUATOR WAS FND IN THE 7 TO 12 DEG POSITION & THE STABILIZER TRIM WAS FND AT THE FULL NOSE DOWN POSITION. FLT TESTS SHOWED THERE WOULD BE NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFICULTY IN CONTROLLING THE ACFT WITH UP TO 1.5' OF ICE ON THE LEADING EDGES & THAT STATIC STABILITY WOULD DETERIORATE DRG FLAP EXTN WITH THE AFT CG CONFIGURATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Ryan Air Services Flight 103
- Article
- Ryan Air Services Flight 103
- Revision
- 1354730063 · 2026-05-18 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q101419600
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA88MA005
- Event ID
- 20001213X32506
- Case number
- DCA88MA005
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Ryan Air Services Flight 103" (page 79494354, revision 1354730063); merged with NTSB case DCA88MA005 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA88MA005: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA88MA005
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA88MA005: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA88MA005: 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 DCA88MA005: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA88MA005: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA88MA005: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Ryan Air Services Flight 103" and NTSB case DCA88MA005, 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.