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DCA02MA054

2002-07-26 · Tallahassee, Florida, United States · Serious · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport TLH

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The captain's and first officer's failure to establish and maintain a proper glidepath during the night visual approach to landing. Contributing to the accident was a combination of the captain's and first officer's fatigue, the captain's and first officer's failure to adhere to company flight procedures, the captain's and flight engineer's failure to monitor the approach, and the first officer's color vision deficiency.

Factual narrative

The Safety Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-04/02. On July 26, 2002, at 0537 eastern daylight time, a FedEx Boeing 727, N497FE, crashed during landing at Tallahassee, Florida. The airplane was operating as Flight 1478 from Memphis, Tennessee, to Tallahassee. The airplane crashed short of the runway, and was subsequently destroyed by fire. All three crewmembers were seriously injured. The Safety Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-04/02. On July 26, 2002, at 0537 eastern daylight time, a FedEx Boeing 727, N497FE, crashed during landing at Tallahassee, Florida. The airplane was operating as Flight 1478 from Memphis, Tennessee, to Tallahassee. The airplane crashed short of the runway, and was subsequently destroyed by fire. All three crewmembers were seriously injured. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2002_DCA02MA054.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

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