American Eagle Flight 5401

American Eagle Flight 5401, operating as Executive Airlines Flight 5401, was a domestic passenger flight from Mayaguez-Eugenio M. de Hostos Airport to San Juan-Luis Munoz Marin International Airport. During the landing process, the ATR 72 operating the flight crashed and was damaged substantially. 20 of the 26 people onboard were injured.
The cause of the accident was the captain's failure to recover from the bounced landing and failure to execute a go-around. Othter indicated safety issues in the investigation included the lack of company guidance and training for bounced landing recovery and malfunctioning flight data recorder sensors.
The accident let more awereness of "bounced landing recovery techniques" that wasn't before part in the pilot training and simulator training of multiple airlines and was in September 2004 implemented into the Airplane Operating Manual.
Background
Aircraft
The aircraft involved, manufactured in 1995, was an ATR 72-212 registered as N438AT with serial number 438. In its nine years of service, it had logged 19276 airframe hours in 18086 takeoff and landing cycles. It was also powered by two four-blade propellers Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127 engines. The aircraft had a capacity of 64 passengers.
Crew
In command was a 33-year-old captain who was hired by Executive Airlines on January 11, 1999, and had logged 6071 hours of flying time, including 3814 logged on the ATR 42/72 aircraft owned by Executive Airlines. His co-pilot was a 26-year-old first officer who was hired by Executive Airlines on February 10, 2004. He had logged about 2000 hours of flying time, including 20 logged on the ATR 42/72 aircraft owned by Executive Airlines.
Aftermath
A team of city rescuers was practicing on the beach located one block away from the airport and ran to the scene to give help, with the airport's fire-and-rescue team later helping in the operation. 20 people sustained injuries. 13 people were hospitalized, including the captain who was serious injured. They were taken to hospitals in the Carolina area and to Centro Médico Episcopal San Lucas, in Río Piedras.<ref name=":0" />
It turned out that the pilots didn't have experience with bounced landing recovery techniques. It was not formalized part of the airlines' pilot training and none of the its manuals contained inforamation regarding to bounced landing recovery techniques. After further investigation done by surveys it became known that only a few airliners included bounced landing recovery techniques into its trainings and manuals. In September 2004 bounced landing recovery techniques was incorporated into the Airplane Operating Manual of Executive Airlines.<ref name=":0" />
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was the captain's failure to recover from the bounced landing and his subsequent failure to execute a go-around. The NTSB also identified safety issues related to flight crew performance, the lack of company guidance and training for bounced landing recovery and malfunctioning flight data recorder sensors. Safety recommendations were issued to the Federal Aviation Administration concerning these issues.<ref name=":0" />

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