2019 Toledo Convair CV-440 crash
Ferreteria e Implementos San Francisco Convair 440 · Stalled on approach due to pilot error caused by fatigue
From Laredo International Airport (NQA) to Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport (TOL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19MA312
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 2
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Convair 440
- Aircraft type
- Convair 440
- 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
- N24DR
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laredo International Airport (NQA), Millington, TNTo Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport (TOL), Toledo, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 62 years (built 1957)
- 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 125: 20+ Pax,6000+ lbs
- 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
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On September 11, 2019, a Convair CV-440F, operating a domestic non scheduled cargo flight in the United States from Laredo International Airport, Texas, to Toledo Express Airport, Ohio, with an intermediate stopover to Millington-Memphis Airport, Tennessee, crashed short of the runway during approach at its destination. Both pilots on board were killed. The investigation into the accident found out that the aircraft stalled during approach due to errors made by the pilots in mantaining a correct airspeed, these errors were mainly caused by the fatigue of the crew.
Accident
The first leg of the flight from Laredo to Memphis was uneventful, then, after refueling, it took off again headed to Toledo Express Airport. At 2:35 the aircraft initiated its approach procedure to Toledo, and just four minutes later, while descending, it entered a stall, struck treetops and crashed into vehicles parked at a truck repairing facility. The aircraft and multiple vehicles on the ground caught fire and were destroyed by the blaze. Both crew members on board the CV-440 were killed, but no one on the ground was hurt. Multiple emergency crews were dispatched after the crash, and firefighter units took more than three hours to extinguish the post-crash fire. Multiple roads around Toledo Express Airport were closed for various hours on September 11 after the crash.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Due to the absence of flight recorders on board the aircraft, the investigators had to analyse its radar tracking data to examine factors like airspeed and altitude during the approach.
The National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the accident in 2022 in which it was determined that the plane crashed during approach after entering a stall, caused by errors of pilots in monitoring and mantaining a correct airspeed for that manouver, with the plane having slowed down at a speed of around 70 knots at a low altitude. Investigators also analysed the previous flight schedules of the two pilots and concluded that, in the hours previous to the accident flight, they've overworked and received too little rest. Their fatigue is indicated as the main factor that led to the errors and failure to mantain a certain speed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2019 Toledo Convair CV-440 crash” (revision 1374861367, 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 accident occurred during the second of a two-leg nonscheduled cargo flight. The initial leg of the flight departed the preceding evening. The pilots landed about 3.5 hours later for fuel and departed on the accident flight an hour after refueling. The flight entered a cruise descent about 39 miles from the destination airport in preparation for approach and landing. The pilots reported to air traffic control that they were executing a wide base and were subsequently cleared for a visual approach and landing. The landing clearance was acknowledged, and no further communications were received. No problems or anomalies were reported during the flight. The airplane was briefly established on final approach before radar contact was lost.
The airplane impacted trees and terrain about 0.5 mile short of the runway and came to rest in a trucking company parking lot. A postimpact fire ensued. Damage to the landing gear indicated that it was extended at the time of impact. The position of the wing flaps could not be determined. Disparities in the propeller blade angles at impact were likely due to the airplane’s encounter with the wooded area and the impact sequence. No evidence of mechanical anomalies related to the airframe, engines, or propellers was observed.
A review of air traffic control radar data revealed that the airplane airspeed decayed to about 70 to 75 kts on final approach which was at or below the documented aerodynamic stall speed of the airplane in the landing configuration.
Although there was limited information about the flight crew’s schedules, their performance was likely impaired by fatigue resulting from both the total duration of the overnight flights and the approach being conducted in the window of the circadian low. This likely resulted in the flight crew’s failure to maintain airspeed and recognize the impending aerodynamic stall conditions.
Probable cause
The flight crew’s failure to maintain the proper airspeed on final approach, which resulted in an inadvertent aerodynamic stall and impact with trees, and terrain. Contributing to the accident was the flight crew’s fatigue due to the overnight flight schedule.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2019 Toledo Convair CV-440 crash
- Revision
- 1374861367 · 2026-09-14 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN19MA312
- Event ID
- 20190911X54810
- Case number
- CEN19MA312
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2019 Toledo Convair CV-440 crash" (page 84194441, revision 1374861367); merged with NTSB case CEN19MA312 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record CEN19MA312: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record CEN19MA312
- Map position
- NTSB record CEN19MA312: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record CEN19MA312: 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 CEN19MA312: operated under Part 125: 20+ Pax,6000+ lbs
- Fatalities
- NTSB record CEN19MA312: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record CEN19MA312: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2019 Toledo Convair CV-440 crash" and NTSB case CEN19MA312, 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, cause areas. 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.