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Atlas / NTSB / DCA87IA015

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DCA87IA015

1986-12-18 DETROIT, Michigan, United States Airport · DTW None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

DRG ARR, THE FLT WAS VECTORED FOR AN ILS RWY 3R APCH. AT THAT TIME, ATIS INFO INDCD MOD MIXED ICING IN CLDS. THE CAPT RPRTD THE ACFT ENTERED THE CLOUD TOPS AT 5500', WAS IN THE CLDS APRX 5 MIN & ACCUMULATED ABT 1.5' OF RIME ICE. HE STATEDICE ACCUMULATION WAS RAPID, SO THEY DECIDED TO WAIT UNTIL THEY WERE IN THE CLR TO CYCLE THE BOOTS TO PREVENT BRIDGING. AFTER INTERCEPTING THE ILS GLIDE SLOPE ON A COUPLED APCH, THE ACFT WAS SLOWED TO EXTD THE GEAR & FLAPS. A CALL FOR 'FLAPS 15' WAS MADE & APRX 3 SEC LATER, THE AUTOPLT DISCONNECTED AS THE ACFT WAS DSCNDG THRU ABT 1900' AGL AT APRX 146 KTS. AT APRX THE SAME TIME FRAME, THE DE-ICE BOOTS WERE CYCLED AS THE ACFT BROKE OUT OF WX & THE ACFT WENT OUT OF CTL. IT ENTERED BANK OSCILLATIONS (UP TO 44 DEG) & ABRUPTLY LOST ABT 500' BEFORE THE CREW RCVRD, BUT THEY LNDD SUCCESSFULLY. INV REVEALED THE RECENTLY TRAINED CREW DIDN'T GET SUFFICIENT TRAINING IN USE OF DE-ICE EQUIP FM COMPANY INSTRUCTORS, WHOWERE TRAINED AT THE FACTORY. AFTER THIS INCIDENT, THE MANUFACTURER REVISED THE FLT MANUAL TO PROVIDE MORE SPECIFIC INFO. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1986_DCA87IA015.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 (icing). 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 ↗