BFO95LA081 · Beech 55
Beech 55 · Accident: fire on approach
From John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH) to Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport (MFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95LA081
- 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 55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N1685W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), Columbus, OHTo Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport (MFD), OH
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Electrical system › Shorted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two CFI's reported that the purpose of the flight was recurrency training. They completed the airwork portion of the flight, and proceeded to perform instrument approaches. They stated that everything was normal during the VOR approach to runway 14, and they circled to land on runway 32. The pilot-in-command stated that when he extended the landing gear he noticed whitish/gray smoke coming from behind the instrument panel. He retracted the landing gear and landed on runway 32. The airplane slid about 2,000 feet down the asphalt runway, and was destroyed by fire. Postaccident examination revealed a short circuit in the main power distribution cable which is routed behind the instrument panel.
Probable cause
the inflight and postimpact fire due to a short circuit in the main power distribution cable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95LA081
- Event ID
- 20001207X04167
- Case number
- BFO95LA081
- 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: d37dffa292535ec7443058ba8208cb27a37572cce747717bad25959675d06c83; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:25:18.569Z.