United Express Flight 898
Beech 1900D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA004
- 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
- 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 1900D
- 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
- N31YV
- Operator
- United Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), COTo Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA), Amarillo, TX
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inaccurate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE LEVEL 6 THUNDERSTORM PASSED OVER THE AIRPORT FROM NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST, THE CAPTAIN ELECTED NOT TO TAKE OFF BECAUSE OF THE FALLING HAIL. AFTER WAITING ABOUT 30 MINUTES, THE FLIGHT TOOK OFF ON RUNWAY 35L. THE CAPTAIN REQUESTED A RIGHT TURN, AND WAS ASSIGNED A HEADING OF 080 DEGREES AND CLEARED TO CLIMB TO 20,000 FEET. THE AIRPLANE ENTERED THE OVERCAST AND ENCOUNTERED 'LIGHT HAIL.' AS IT TURNED ONTO ITS ASSIGNED HEADING, THE AIRBORNE WEATHER RADAR INDICATED HEAVY PRECIPITATION AHEAD. A REQUEST WAS MADE FOR A TURN FURTHER RIGHT. SUDDENLY, THE RIGHT WINDSHIELD SHATTERED, SENDING GLASS PARTICLES INTO THE FIRST OFFICER'S EYES. THE AIRPLANE IMMEDIATELY DESCENDED TO VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, RETURNED TO THE AIRPORT, AND LANDED.
Probable cause
THE CAPTAIN'S INACCURATE EVALUATION OF WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND HIS DECISION TO FLY INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER. A FACTOR WAS THE HAIL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA004
- Event ID
- 20001206X02424
- Case number
- FTW95FA004
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 405523749bdf6010fd6e063439ac80e7b2bf9c62ce5a95a201f07c5eb3e266c8; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:07:37.037Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N31YV; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.