1993 Aviation Services Swearingen Metro accident near Hartford
Swearingen SA-226-TC · Belly landing, loss of control after subsequent go-around
From Republic Airport (FRG) to Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC93FA159
- 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
- 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
- General aviation
- 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-226-TC
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-226
- 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
- N220KC
- Operator
- Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NYTo Hartford Brainard Airport (HFD)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Aircraft control › Not maintained
- Copilot/second pilot › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Copilot/second pilot › Checklist, not followed
- Copilot/second pilot › Gear extension, not performed
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hartford, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
In the 1993 accident of an Aviation Services Swearingen Metro near Hartford, on 17 August 1993 a Fairchild Swearingen SA226-TC Metro II on a positioning flight from Farmington Republic Field, New York to Hartford-Brainard Airport, Connecticut crashed into the Connecticut River. Both occupants were killed in the accident. The accident occurred after a go-around was initiated because the pilots had forgotten to extend the landing gear for landing and the underside of the fuselage scraped along the runway.
Accident sequence
The aircraft was on final approach to runway 02 of Hartford-Brainard Airport. The pilots forgot to extend the landing gear for landing, and no audible warning tone sounded either, since the circuit breaker for the warning horn had been pulled in order to avoid false alarms, which had occurred in the past during high-speed descents. The propeller blades made ground contact with the runway surface at a speed of 96 knots. The pilots still tried to initiate a go-around, during which, however, the speed dropped by a further ten knots. The aircraft still flew over a stone wall, but because of the stall it crashed into the water of the Connecticut River and sank. The two pilots died in the impact.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. The investigators concluded that the accident had been caused by the first officer's failure to complete the landing checklist and his resulting failure to extend the landing gear for landing, as well as by his failure to maintain an adequate airspeed. The investigators faulted the captain for not properly monitoring the flight and not taking timely countermeasures.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Swearingen Metro der Aviation Services bei Hartford 1993” (revision 232263845, 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
ON AN APPROACH TO LAND AT THE DESTINATION, THE SECOND-IN-COMMAND (SIC) WAS FLYING THE AIRPLANE. THE PLANE TOUCHED DOWN WITH THE LANDING GEAR RETRACTED, & THE PROPELLER BLADES CONTACTED THE RUNWAY. THE SIC INITIATED A GO-AROUND (ABORTED LANDING). WITNESSES SAW THE AIRPLANE IN A STEEP LEFT BANK JUST BEFORE IMPACT IN A RIVER NEXT TO THE AIRPORT. PROPELLER STRIKES ON THE RUNWAY EXTENDED 380', INDICATING A TOUCHDOWN SPEED OF 96 KTS. THE LAST PROPELLER STRIKES ON THE RIGHT SIDE INDICATED A SPEED OF 86 KTS. THE LAST STRIKES ON THE LEFT SIDE INDICATED A SLOWING PROPELLER. PUBLISHED VMC FOR THE AIRPLANE WAS 94 KTS. THE CVR TAPE REVEALED THE CREW COMPLETED A DESCENT ARRIVAL CHECK, PERFORMED AN INCOMPLETE APPROACH BRIEFING, & DID NOT PERFORM A BEFORE LANDING CHECK. THE CVR REVEALED NO SOUND OF A GEAR WARNING HORN. COMPANY PERSONNEL STATED THAT THE CIRCUIT BREAKER FOR THE WARNING HORN HAD BEEN FOUND PULLED AT THE COMPLETION OF PREVIOUS FLIGHTS BY OTHER CREW; THIS WAS TO PREVENT A WARNING HORN FROM SOUNDING DURING A HIGH RATE OF DESCENT.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE COPILOT (SECOND-IN-COMMAND) TO FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST, ASSURE THE GEAR WAS EXTENDED FOR LANDING AND ATTAIN OR MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED (VMC); AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND (PIC) TO PROPERLY SUPERVISE THE FLIGHT AND TAKE SUFFICIENT REMEDIAL ACTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall einer Swearingen Metro der Aviation Services bei Hartford 1993
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 232263845 · 2023-03-28 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q111660218
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record NYC93FA159
- Event ID
- 20001211X13216
- Case number
- NYC93FA159
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall einer Swearingen Metro der Aviation Services bei Hartford 1993" (page 12177294, revision 232263845), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NYC93FA159 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record NYC93FA159: events.ev_date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NYC93FA159
- Map position
- NTSB record NYC93FA159: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NYC93FA159: 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 NYC93FA159: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities (the NTSB record states no total)
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NYC93FA159: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1993 Aviation Services Swearingen Metro accident near Hartford" and NTSB case NYC93FA159, 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.
- The date is the UTC date the NTSB stores; the local date may be a day earlier.