MIA96FA082 · Beech 95-B55
Beech 95-B55 · Accident: hard landing
From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ) to Foothills Regional Airport (MRN)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96FA082
- 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
- 2 · 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 95-B55
- 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
- N448P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), ST AUGUSTINE, FLTo Foothills Regional Airport (MRN)
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted landing, delayed
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The owner/pilot had recently purchased the airplane. Another pilot, who had delivered the airplane to the new owner, flew with him on 2 occasions. He said the owner/pilot was about 20 knots fast on final approach and had a tendency to flare late for landing. During the accident flight, the pilot entered the traffic pattern at night and configured the airplane for landing. During the landing, the airplane touched down (bounced) nosewheel first and began to porpoise. Following the second bounce, the airplane pitched nose up, and the pilot initiated a go-around; however, the airplane bounced a third time, and the cabin door popped open. The right front seat passenger attempted to hold the door closed as the pilot continued the go-around. After the third bounce, the airplane remained airborne about 6 to 15 feet until it collided with trees beyond the departure end of the runway; then it came to rest inverted. Examination of the engines, propellers, and flight controls revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. Calculations showed that at the time of the accident, the gross weight was 192 pounds over the maximum limit, and the center-of-gravity (CG) was 1.56 inches behind the aft limit. Also, the POH/Flight Manual indicated that the performance would be reduced with the cabin door open. The pilot had accumulated an estimated 9 hours in the accident airplane since he purchased it.
Probable cause
the pilot's delay in initiating a go-around (aborted landing), which resulted in his failure to obtain/maintain sufficient altitude or clearance from trees beyond the end of the runway. Factors relating to the accident were: the pilot's failure to ensure proper weight and balance of the airplane; and his improper flare and improper recovery from a bounced landing, which resulted in porpoising of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96FA082
- Event ID
- 20001208X05293
- Case number
- MIA96FA082
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-02-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d623a1985c44d1b39040f00cdb6a2ad45951c17b9e4c45848cc257ce3f60599a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:25:44.174Z.