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Atlas / NTSB / DCA22LA004

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DCA22LA004

2021-09-23 Honolulu, Hawaii, United States Airport · PHNL None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N208HA

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

AIRBUS A321-271N

Year of manufacture

2018 · 3 years old at event

TCDS

A28NM · AIRBUS SAS

Engine

IAE PW1133G-JM

Seats / Engines

222 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

20181101

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A1B06B

Registrant of record

HAWAIIAN AIRLINES INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The captain’s improper landing flare, which resulted in an excessive sink rate and subsequent hard landing.

Factual narrative

According to the operator, the captain was the pilot flying, and the first officer was the pilot monitoring for the flight from the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Jose, California to the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, Hawaii. The taxi, takeoff, climb, cruise, and descent phases of the flight were uneventful. The crew was vectored for the ILS approach to runway 4R at HNL. The ILS approach was uneventful with the crew achieving all of Hawaiian Airlines stabilized approach criteria at both the 1000 ft and 500 ft AGL. The approach remained uneventful until the flare was initiated at approximately 25 feet AGL. Winds were reported to be approximately 11 kts with gusting up to 18 kts. At this point the captain reported that he felt the aircraft had an accelerated sink rate. To arrest the sink rate, he initiated a slight increase in pitch angle. He then heard an automated audible pitch alert generated by the aircraft and then felt a firm bounce of the aircraft upon initial touchdown. The crew initiated a go-around and had an uneventful approach and landing on runway 04R. Following the landing the crew completed an uneventful taxi and shutdown at the gate. The tailstrike resulted in abrasion damage over an area of about 14 feet long by 2 feet wide along the aft lower fuselage. There also were several fractures to the internal cargo lining support structure and to at least one frame. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Identification/recognition-Pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_DCA22LA004.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗