FTW96LA057 · Beech D18S
Beech D18S · Accident: hard landing
From 3V5 · Fort Collins, CO to Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA057
- 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 D18S
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 18
- 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
- N8603A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3V5 · Fort Collins, COTo Northern Colorado Regional Airport (FNL)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Copilot/second pilot › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT-OWNER/OPERATOR, WHO WAS SEATED IN THE RIGHT SEAT, SAID THE LEFT SEAT PILOT MADE THE APPROACH TO RUNWAY 15. THE WIND WAS REPORTED AS BEING FROM THE SOUTHWEST AT 20 KNOTS WITH NO REFERENCE TO GUSTS. HE SAID THE PILOT ALIGNED THE AIRPLANE 40 FEET LEFT OF RUNWAY CENTERLINE AND FAILED TO FLARE. THE AIRPLANE CONTACTED THE RUNWAY, BOUNCED BACK INTO THE AIR WITH THE RIGHT WING HIGH, AND BEGAN DRIFTING TO THE LEFT. THE RIGHT SEAT PILOT TOOK CONTROL, FIRST TRYING TO LOWER THE WING THEN ATTEMPTING TO ABORT THE LANDING. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND AND CARTWHEELED. THE LEFT SEAT PILOT SAID HE WAS 'RECEIVING TRAINING' FROM THE PILOT-OWNER AND WAS 'NOT AT THE CONTROLS' AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE SECOND PILOT'S FAILURE TO COMPENSATE FOR WIND CONDITIONS AND HIS IMPROPER RECOVERY FROM A BOUNCED LANDING, AND THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF THE FLIGHT. FACTORS WERE THE SECOND PILOT'S LACK OF LANDING EXPERIENCE IN THE AIRPLANE MAKE/MODEL, AND THE GUSTY CROSSWIND CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA057
- Event ID
- 20001207X04859
- Case number
- FTW96LA057
- 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: 6f0cd59d7ec7118b17e7767d1e6cf88a6c9fc2f70365eedf5fabdb2241ef7684; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:58:51.652Z.