CHI95LA075 · Beech C45H
Beech C45H · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to St Clair County International Airport (PHN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA075
- 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
- 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 C45H
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 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
- N618K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo St Clair County International Airport (PHN), Port Huron, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Owner/pilot mechanic › Maintenance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND STATED THAT SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, WHEN THE AIRPLANE WAS ABOUT 150 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND OVER A STAND OF TREES, THE LEFT ENGINE LOST POWER. THE PILOTS MADE A HARD FORCED LANDING IN A FIELD, SKIDDED AND CAME TO A STOP AGAINST A FARM BUILDING. THE POWER LOSS OCCURRED OVER A WOODED AREA. POSTACCIDENT EXAMINATION REVEALED THE LEFT ENGINE DRIVEN FUEL PUMP SHAFT HAD FAILED. AIRPLANE RECORDS INDICATED THE MOST RECENT MAINTENANCE OCCURRED IN NOVEMBER 1991. THE AIRPLANE HAD FLOWN 148 HOURS SINCE THAT DATE.
Probable cause
The owner/pilot's inadequate maintenance practices which resulted in a loss of engine power shortly after takeoff and the pilot's inadequate emergency procedure after the power loss occurred. Related factors are trees, diminished airspeed and abrupt touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA075
- Event ID
- 20001207X02842
- Case number
- CHI95LA075
- 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: 40dde70f525e6d7be761368da3d4c68325387e445651b2c94fd3f2e4c585e2e3; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:18:15.056Z.