DCA96MA008

The airplane impacted trees, then an ILS antenna as it landed short of the runway on grass, even terrain during a night VOR approach in strong, gusty wind conditions. At the time of the accident, the indicated altitude (height above airport elevation) that the airplane's QFE altimeter was indicating was about 76 feet too high (based on the altimeter setting received at 0030), resulting in the airplane being 76 feet lower than indicated on the primary altimeters. Because the flightcrew knew that the atmospheric pressure was falling rapidly, they should have requested a current altimeter setting from the approach controller when was not given, as required, upon initial radio contact. Although the flightcrew did not use the most current QNH setting they had available (29.40 inches of Hg.) in the standby altimeter, this error did not affect the accident sequence of events because the flightcrew had the correct, but outdated, QFE setting (29.23 inches Hg.) in the altimeters they were using when the accident occurred. If the first officer had monitored the approach on instruments until reaching minimum descent altitude (MDA) and delayed his search for the airport until after reaching the MDA, he would have been better able to notice and immediately call the captain's attention to the altitude deviation below the MDA.

On November 12, 1995, at 0057 est, an American Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-80, registered in the US as N566AA, struck trees on a ridge line 2.65 miles from the end of runway 15 at Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, CT. The airplane then landed safely at the airport. One of the 72 passengers received a minor injury during the emergency evacuation. None of the 5 crewmembers were injured. The flight was operating under CFR Part 121 in instrument meteorological conditions. It originated at O'Hare International Airport about two hours before the accident. See NTSB/AAR-96/05 for details.