CHI99FA105 · Beech C-45G
Beech C-45G · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) to Willow Run Airport (YIP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99FA105
- 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
- Accident
- 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
- 1 · 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
- General aviation
- 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 C-45G
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft C-45
- 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
- N234L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), MITo Willow Run Airport (YIP), Belleville, MI
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 · climb to cruise
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft declared an emergency following departure from runway 03R at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Romulus, Michigan. The aircraft was resting on a magnetic heading of 055 degrees located approximately 3,400 feet from and 1,900 feet to the left of the departure end and centerline of runway 03R at DTW. Inspection of the forward section of the fuselage door and surrounding fuselage, a circular impression with no exposure of the underlying metal was noted approximately 2 feet 6-1/2 inches from the door hinge line. The door was opened to a point nearly flush with the aircraft's fuselage. The door handle was found to match the circular impression in position and shape. There was no tearing or fracturing of the forward fuselage door pin tips or its door pin holes. Inspection of the door's latching mechanism revealed a brown colored nail connecting the handle and vertical latches. Both engine supercharger turbine wheels displayed scoring and deformation of the impeller blades in the plane of rotation. Aileron, elevator and rudder flight control continuity was established. The elevator trim was in the neutral position. The trailing edge flaps were in the retracted positions. Both engine oil screens showed no evidence of metal contamination.
Probable cause
the aircraft control not maintained and the inadvertent stall by the pilot while maneuvering to the landing area. The open door was a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99FA105
- Event ID
- 20001205X00273
- Case number
- CHI99FA105
- 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. 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: 4057b0c30232b574f5bf733a9bd187d170daaba3ee1fb95adc41d80f4f75d8ec; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:13:01.394Z.