ATL99FA072 · Beech T-34A
Beech T-34A · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99FA072
- 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
- 2 · 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 T-34A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft T-34
- 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
- N140SW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY)To not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Design stress limits of aircraft › Exceeded
- Wing, spar › Fatigue
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Rydal, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The simulated combat flight made a course change maneuver associated with a climb or a descent. The accident airplane preformed the maneuver with a descending left turn. While descending and turning, the safety pilot instructed the client to turn harder and to bury the nose. While following the safety pilot's instructions the right wing assembly separated from the airframe. The main airplane wreckage collided with the ground along the edge of a wooded area of a subdivision. The right wing assembly was located approximately 1/2 mile north of the main wreckage. Examination of the airplane disclosed fatigue cracking in the spar material in the vicinity of wing spar fracture face. The T-34A design 'G' load limits are +6.0 and -3.0.
This report was modified on November 2, 2005.
Probable cause
Fracture of the wing spar as a result of fatigue cracking that occurred over an unknown number of flights and flight hours with a wing loading spectrum not anticipated during design of the airplane.
This report was modified on November 2, 2005.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99FA072
- Event ID
- 20001205X00416
- Case number
- ATL99FA072
- 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: 5d855901243d901ae84c41765a0a1e1ab89567cf3f6d311e47bab3962a02e8a4; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:09:33.854Z.