Dornier 328

The Dornier 328 has a good fatal record but a long list of landing accidents. Up to 7 October 2026 the family, which includes the turboprop 328 and the jet-powered 328JET, has one fatal accident in about 2.4 million passenger flights. Eight aircraft have been written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, five of them in landing accidents, two of which ended in an overrun. The pattern points to how the aircraft is landed, and where, more than to anything that breaks.

What the Dornier 328 is

Dornier designed the 328 as a fast 30- to 33-seat commuter airliner with a high wing and a T-tail. The turboprop version first flew in 1991 and entered service in 1993, with Pratt & Whitney Canada PW119 engines. The 328JET, which replaced the turboprops with two small turbofans, followed in the late 1990s. Fairchild Dornier, which built both, went bankrupt in 2002, and 327 aircraft were built in all. Deutsche Aircraft now holds the design and is working on a new version.

Where you fly on one

In the 1990s and 2000s the 328 flew with US regional airlines such as Horizon Air, PSA Airlines (as US Airways Express) and Air Wisconsin (as United Express), and the 328JET with Atlantic Coast Airlines and Hainan Airlines. In Europe, Minerva, Cirrus Airlines and Sun-Air of Scandinavia, a British Airways franchise partner, used it on thin business routes. About 80 remain in service. Today you are most likely to meet one on a charter or corporate shuttle, or with a small regional airline, for example in Colombia, Indonesia or Scandinavia.

The fatal accident

On 25 February 1999, Alitalia flight 1553, operated by Minerva Airlines with a 328-110, flew from Cagliari to Genoa. It landed long with a tailwind component on runway 29, could not stop on the remaining runway and ran into the sea at the end. The fuselage sank. 4 of the 31 people on board died. No 328JET has had a fatal accident.

Landing accidents and the power levers

The 328's weak spot is the landing. Of the eight hull lossesHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, five happened on landing. The best documented is Cirrus Airlines flight 1567 at Mannheim on 19 March 2008. The first officer floated the aircraft down the short runway and handed over control; the captain touched down with 480 m left. Because the power levers had not been brought back to flight idle in the flare, they could not be moved into ground idle or reverse, and the aircraft hit an earth wall beyond the runway end. All 27 people survived.

Germany's BFU listed crew errors and unstable approaches first. But it also found that the power lever design was not forgiving enough, and that the manufacturer and the authorities had not fixed the problem despite earlier events and safety recommendations. Mannheim's missing touchdown markings and short safety area added to the damage.

Airframe or operating environment?

The rest of the record shows the environment. In Indonesia, Express Air wrote off a 328 at Fak Fak in 2008 after a heavy landing on short final; investigators found its pilots had had no crew resource training for years, and the airport lacked runway end safety areas. A 328JET was written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary after a wheels-up landing at Mogadishu in 2017. Short runways and weak operators produce landing accidents in any type, and the 328's record in mainstream airline service in the US and Europe is good. Our methodology counts both versions as one family.

How to tell if you are on one

Flight trackers show D328 for the turboprop and J328 for the 328JET. Both have a high wing over the cabin and a T-tail; the jet has its engines hanging under the wing where the propellers would be. For comparison, look at the Saab 340, the Dash 8 and, for the jet, the Embraer ERJ.