BFO94FA121 · Beech 58TC
Phoenix Aviation Beech 58TC · Accident: fire en route
From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to Lebanon Municipal Airport (M54)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94FA121
- 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
- 3 · 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 58TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N333TK
- Operator
- Phoenix Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PATo Lebanon Municipal Airport (M54), Lebanon, TN
- 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 · 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
- Fire
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT AT 10,000 FEET MSL, THE AIRPLANE DEVIATED SLIGHTLY BELOW AND ABOVE THE ASSIGNED ALTITUDE, THEN IT ENTERED A RAPID DESCENT AND BROKE APART IN FLIGHT. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED EVIDENCE OF AN IN-FLIGHT FIRE, BUT THE SOURCE OF THE FIRE WAS NOT VERIFIED. A POST-CRASH FIRE CONSUMED THE FORWARD FUSELAGE. A SUBSTANCE IDENTIFIED AS PVC-DOP WAS FOUND ON THE FORWARD UTILITY DOOR AND ON THE RIGHT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER. BOTH OF THESE HAD SEPARATED FROM THE FUSELAGE AND WERE FOUND WITH OTHER PIECES OF WRECKAGE THAT WERE SCATTERED OVER A 1/2 MILE AREA. THE PVC-DOP HAD BEEN DEPOSITED IN A 'MOLTEN STATE.' ANALYSIS OF THE PVC-DOP REVEALED THAT IT HAD A MELTING POINT OF 185 DEGREES CELSIUS. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE HORIZONTAL STABILIZER HAD FAILED IN NUMEROUS PIECES, AND THE WINGS HAD FAILED DOWNWARD WITH SEPARATION OCCURRING JUST OUTSIDE THE ENGINE NACELLES. BOTH WING SPARS EXHIBITED DOWNWARD DEFORMATION. NO PREACCIDENT ANOMALIES WERE FOUND WITH THE AIRFRAME OR ENGINES. PATHOLOGICAL EXAMINATIONS OF THE OCCUPANTS REVEALED SOOTING IN THEIR TRACHEA'S.
Probable cause
AN IN-FLIGHT FIRE OF UNDETERMINED ORIGIN, PRIOR TO THE IN-FLIGHT BREAKUP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94FA121
- Event ID
- 20001206X01451
- Case number
- BFO94FA121
- 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: 93a3e006ff1f25cbd7c63dc9c0c4f70a4608e2e93bdb3a9aa83be4d469b09784; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:06:00.189Z.