Pioneer Airlines Swearingen Metro accident
Swearingen SA-227AC · The Pioneer Airlines Swearingen Metro accident occurred on 7 December 1982
From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF) to Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN83AA032
- 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
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Swearingen SA-227AC
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-227
- 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
- N30093
- Operator
- Pioneer Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)To Pueblo Memorial Airport (PUB)
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inattentive
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pueblo, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The Pioneer Airlines Swearingen Metro accident occurred on 7 December 1982. On that day a Swearingen SA227-AC Metro III of the airline Pioneer Airlines was operating a cargo flight from Santa Fe in New Mexico to Pueblo in Colorado. Shortly before landing the aircraft was flown into terrain, killing the two pilots on board.
Flight and sequence of events
The take-off in Santa Fe and the cruise towards Pueblo were routine. On approach to the destination airport, at 19:06 the crew received clearance to descend to 7500 feet and the instruction to then maintain this altitude. For a radar-guided approach (ASR APCH = Airport Surveillance Radar approach) to Pueblo Memorial Airport, the aircraft was to turn right to a heading of 040° (≈northeast). In addition, the pilots were advised of the minimum descent altitude (MDA) of 5200 feet. This radio transmission from the approach controller was read back incorrectly by the pilot: “Left to one forty five two zero zero” (Left to [heading] 140° (≈southeast), [altitude] 5200). The approach controller pointed out that the correct heading was 040°, which the crew then also confirmed. This was the crew's last radio transmission. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. As later emerged, the Metro had been flown from level flight at an airspeed of more than 200 miles per hour (more than 320 km/h) into the terrain of a steppe landscape; it was thus a controlled flight into terrain.
Investigation and cause
Cause
At first it could not be determined why the aircraft had crashed. At the autopsy, aspirated stomach contents were found in the trachea and lungs of the first officer. The investigators concluded from this that a medical emergency had occurred on board the aircraft. After the first officer had vomited and was choking on his vomit, the captain had presumably tried to help him and in doing so was distracted from his actual task of flying the aircraft and steered the aircraft into the ground. Another pilot of the airline later confirmed that the first officer had already vomited three weeks earlier on another flight.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Swearingen Metro der Pioneer Airlines” (revision 267842494, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
AT 1906 THE FLT WAS CLEARED TO DESCEND & MAINTAIN 7,500 FT, TURN RIGHT TO A HEADING 040 FOR AN ASR APCH TO PUEBLO MEMORIAL ARPT, & THAT THE MDA IS 5,200. THE FLT READ BACK "LEFT TO ONE FORTY FIVE TWO ZERO ZERO." APPROACH CONTROL ADVISED THE FLT THAT THE HEADING WAS 040 & THE FLT ACKNOWLEDGED. THERE WERE NO FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE FLT. THE ACFT WAS TRAVELLING IN EXCESS OF AN ESTIMATED 200 MPH WHEN IT STRUCK TUNDRA IN LEVEL FLIGHT ON A HEADING OF ABOUT 040. THE COPLT'S AUTOPSY REVEALED THAT THE TRACHAE, BRONCHI, & LUNGS CONTAINED ASPIRATED GASTRIC CONTENTS, INCLUDING SKELETAL MUSCLE FIBERS. ANOTHER COMPANY PLT REPORTED THAT THE COPLT HAD VOMITED DURING A FLT ON 11/14/82.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall einer Swearingen Metro der Pioneer Airlines
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 267842494 · 2026-06-10 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q84955158
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DEN83AA032
- Event ID
- 20020917X04528
- Case number
- DEN83AA032
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall einer Swearingen Metro der Pioneer Airlines" (page 10923085, revision 267842494), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case DEN83AA032 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DEN83AA032: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DEN83AA032
- Map position
- NTSB record DEN83AA032: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DEN83AA032: 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 DEN83AA032: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DEN83AA032: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DEN83AA032: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Pioneer Airlines Swearingen Metro accident" and NTSB case DEN83AA032, 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1982-12-08.