Short 360

The Short 360 is an old, slow and sturdy commuter turboprop with a mixed record, and you are now unlikely to fly on one. Up to 7 October 2026 it has 2 fatal passenger accidents in about 2.9 million passenger flights, a rough estimate since most of its career was before modern flight tracking. Six more fatal events were cargo, test or military flights. The thread through the record is ice, which a low-flying, unpressurised aircraft meets more often than an airliner.

What the Short 360 is

Short Brothers of Belfast stretched its Short 330 into the 360, which first flew in 1981 and entered service in 1982. It kept the square, unpressurised fuselage and the strut-braced high wing, added a longer cabin for about 36 passengers and replaced the twin tail fins with one. It has two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A turboprop engines. Production ended in 1991 after 164 aircraft, in the 360-100, -200 and -300 versions. The US Army flew a cargo version, the C-23B+ Sherpa.

Where it flew, and where it is now

In the 1980s and 1990s the 360 was a workhorse on short regional routes. Aer Lingus flew it from Dublin to British cities, Loganair and British Regional Airlines flew it around Scotland, and American Eagle carriers such as Simmons Airlines in Chicago and Executive Airlines in Puerto Rico flew it under American Airlines colours. Philippine Airlines had it on domestic routes. Faster pressurised types such as the Saab 340 and the ATR 42 replaced it.

About 10 remain in service. Most carry freight: in June 2025 a Transair cargo 360 landed with its gear up at Honolulu after the crew forgot to lower it. Others work in the Caribbean and Africa.

The two counted accidents

• 13 December 1987, Philippine Air Lines PR443: about half an hour after leaving Cebu, the flight made its last radio call near Iligan and flew into Mount Munay, a peak of about 5,000 ft. All 15 on board died. The ASN record gives no cause.
• 13 January 2000, Sirte Oil Company: the 360, leased from Avisto to fly oil workers, lost both engines on descent to Marsa el-Brega and ditched. Libyan investigators found the pilots had been chatting about another aircraft type and never switched on engine anti-icing; ice built up and melted into the engines. With no life jackets aboard, many of the 22 dead drowned.

Ice, the recurring theme

The 360 cruises low, often in the cloud layers where icing is worst. In 1986 an Aer Lingus 360 approaching East Midlands rolled violently left and right and came down in a field; all 36 on board survived. Investigators blamed airframe ice and noted that clear ice was hard to see at night on the type, so the crew had not used the wing de-icing. In 2001 a Loganair mail flight lost both engines over the Forth estuary seconds after the crew switched on intake anti-icing: snow and slush left in the intakes after a day parked in snow went into the engines, and both pilots died. In each case procedures, not a hidden flaw, were the fix.

What else is in the record

Our methodology excludes 6 fatal events. Three were cargo flights: Loganair in 2001, SkyWay Enterprises off Sint Maarten in 2014 and Malu Aviation in DR Congo in 2021. One was a 2006 mid-air collision between two Air Cargo Carriers 360s on a test flight. Two were military: a Florida Army National Guard C-23B+ that broke up in a thunderstorm in 2001, killing 21, and a Venezuelan Air Force aircraft that hit a mountain near Maracay in 2004, killing 30.

How to tell if you are on one

Flight trackers show the ICAO code SH36. Look for the box-shaped fuselage, a wing on struts above the cabin and a single tail fin. If you are booked on one today, it is with a small operator, and that operator's record and regulator matter more than the type's.