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BFO89LA013

1988-11-30 · WASHINGTON, District of Columbia, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport IAD

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

PILOTS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE DURING A TOUCH AND GO LANDING.

Factual narrative

THE PLT RPRTD HE WAS FLYING AN AUTOPILOT COUPLED ILS APCH WHEN THE YAW DAMPER & AUTOPILOT DISENGAGED. AFTER SOME DIFFICULTY, THE PLT WAS ABLE TO KEEP THE AUTOPILOT ENGAGED. HE SAID HE DISENGAGED THE AUTOPILOT ON FINAL APCH AT AN ALT OF APRX 250' AGL. HE LOWERED FULL FLAPS & SLOWED THE ACFT TO 107 KTS. THE PLT STATED THAT AFTER THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN & TRAVELED APRX 1000', ITS NOSE BEGAN TO RISE & OSCILLATE. HE ABORTED THE LNDG, BUT HE WAS UNABLE TO GET AN UP & LOCKED INDICATION FOR THE NOSE GEAR, ALTHOUGH IT WOULD LOCK DOWN. AFTER MAKING A FLY-BY TO VERIFY THE GEAR POSITION, HE MADE A 'SLOW' LNDG. THE PLT RPRTD THAT ALTHOUGH A SLIGHT OSCILLATION WAS NOTED DRG THE LNDG, HE FORCEFULLY HELD THE NOSE DOWN AS HE SLOWED THE ACFT. TESTING & EVALUATION OF THE AUTOPILOT SYSTEM FAILED TO DISCLOSE ANY DISCREPANCY WHICH WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE OSCILLATIONS. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_BFO89LA013.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

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Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (autopilot). All research papers