DEN99IA033 · Beech E90
Beech E90 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to Clovis Municipal Airport (CVN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99IA033
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech E90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N16NM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo Clovis Municipal Airport (CVN), NM
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · descent
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, aaip/progressive program, inadequate
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Chafed
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Shorted
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Clovis, NM, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The air ambulance flight was transporting a male infant in an incubator to Clovis, New Mexico. During the descent into Clovis, the control yoke moved to the full forward position. The pilot eased back on the yoke and the nose pitched up. The pilot was able to maintain control by the use of power and elevator trim, and elected to return to Albuquerque, where an uneventful landing was made. Postincident examination disclosed a drooping wire bundle beneath the pilot's seat, at F.S. 122. The insulation around the H16A10 wire (copilot's windshield heat) had chafed against the elevator down cable (part number 50-524439-31), causing a short circuit. Although the pilot did not detect the odor of smoke, the elevator cable was burnt through and had separated. No circuit breakers were opened nor were any fuses blown.
Probable cause
Total failure of the elevator control cable due to a short circuit from chafing against an adjoining electrical cable, and failure of maintenance personnel to detect the problem during an AAIP phase inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99IA033
- Event ID
- 20001204X00047
- Case number
- DEN99IA033
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0a0dad23b6e3fcb1b32cb33c9716797db25833d3ce466a101b396b59ea31a80b; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:00:25.065Z.