United Express Flight 5840
Beech 1900C · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94IA139
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 1900C
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N141UE
- Operator
- United Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS), Bismarck, NDTo Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, CO
- 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 · 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Failure, partial
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cheyenne, WY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON A SCHEDULED PASSENGER FLIGHT AT 15,000 FEET MSL, AND WHILE PASSING OVER CHEYENNE, WYOMING, THE AIRCRAFT LOST PART OF A PROPELLER BLADE FROM THE LEFT ENGINE. THE ENGINE WAS SECURED, AND DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER IN THE CHEYENNE AREA, THE FLIGHT PROCEEDED TO ITS SCHEDULED DESTINATION IN DENVER, COLORADO, WHERE IT LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. THE PROPELLER BLADE WAS REMOVED AND TESTED AT BOTH THE MANUFACTURER'S FACILITIES AND AT THE MATERIALS LABORATORY AT WRIGHT PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE. THE WRIGHT PATTERSON LABORATORY PROVIDED INFORMATION THAT THERE WAS A PROBABLE NICK OR GOUGE IN THE LEADING EDGE OF THE BLADE AT THE FAILURE POINT. THE SOURCE OF THAT DAMAGE WAS NOT DISCOVERED DURING THE COURSE OF THE INVESTIGATION.
Probable cause
A PARTIAL FAILURE OF THE LEADING EDGE TIP PORTION OF ONE OF THE LEFT ENGINE PROPELLER BLADES DUE TO PREVIOUS IMPACT DAMAGE FROM AN UNKNOWN SOURCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94IA139
- Event ID
- 20001206X01093
- Case number
- FTW94IA139
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 39a5a675fc5dce9f9b287673cbaa342324c7e8cfb43ce9aaad2c48459d3b8152; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:17:04.155Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N141UE; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.