Pilot Michael Leland said the plane veered to the right and he could not stop it, says an aircraft crash report from the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
On Oct. 5, Air Wisconsin Flight 3818 slid off the runway after landing at the Dayton International Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Bombardier CRJ200, which was carrying about 42 passengers and three crew members, was coming from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. The aircraft is owned by United Airlines.
The plane left the runway surface and went into the grass, striking an airfield sign that damaged the tip and the edge of the left wing, according to an after-action report and memo submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration by Mark Kowalski, division manager of airport operations with the city.
No one was hurt during the incident, which is called a “runway excursion.” But it did result in the closure of a runway and some taxiways and multiple emergency response agencies rushed to the scene.
Passengers were removed from the scene by shuttle buses.
The pilot, Leland, is 53 years old and is from Reston, Virginia. The co-pilot was Donald Hicks, a 44-year-old resident of Camden, South Carolina.
Leland and Hicks said the plane landed normally but it then veered to the right unexpectedly.
Neither pilot displayed any signs of impairment, the aircraft crash report states.
Runway excursions are a major cause of aviation accidents, and they usually stem from adverse weather conditions, pilot error, mechanical failure and unstable approaches, aviation industry experts say.
Even though it took months for the National Transportation Safety Board to release its preliminary aviation investigation report into this incident, the report does not include a narrative description and mainly contains meteorological information and details about the flight plan.
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