The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) opened a public docket, releasing facts related to the April 12, 2007 accident involving Pinnacle Airlines Flight 4712 at Cherry Capital Airport, Traverse City, Michigan, according to RAN’s sister publication Air Safety Week. The Pinnacle Bombardier CRJ-200 (N8905F) that departed Minneapolis, MN overran the runway while landing at the small airport at 12:43 am. There were no injuries among the 49 passengers (including three lap-held infants) and three crewmembers. The aircraft suffered substantial damage.
The flight crew was cleared for an instrument landing system (ILS) approach to Runway 28 by Minneapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center. The Traverse City control tower was closed as per normal operations. Automatic weather observation data indicated the airport was experiencing light snow, with visibility of one-and-one-half miles, clouds at 900 and 1,500 feet, and winds from the north-northeast at seven knots. The visibility had dropped to one-half mile in snow, with indefinite ceiling and vertical visibility of 400 feet. Snow removal operations were in progress at the airport, and the flight crew communicated directly with airport operations regarding the runway conditions.
The airplane overran the departure end of Runway 28, which is 6,501 feet long, with a paved blast pad about 200 feet long beyond the threshold. Initial examination indicates that as the airplane exited the paved surface, it was oriented about 60 degrees to the left of the runway heading, and about 30 feet left of the centerline. The airplane entered a grassy snow-covered field beyond the blast pad and the nose gear separated approximately 93 feet beyond the end of the pavement. The airplane slewed to the right and came to rest oriented about 20 degrees left of centerline with the right main gear sunken into the ground at a point about 100 feet beyond the pavement. Flight data and cockpit voice recorders were recovered from the airplane and read out at the NTSB lab in Washington, DC.