Florida Gulf Airlines Flight 5564
Beech 1900D · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) to Orlando International Airport (MCO)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96IA109
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Visual 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
- N29YV
- Operator
- Florida Gulf Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville International Airport (JAX)To Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FL
- 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Manufacturer › Inadequate surveillance, inadequate procedure
- Manufacturer › Material defect
- Propeller system/accessories, counterweight › Brittle fracture
- Propeller system/accessories, counterweight › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff a counterweight and clamp separated from one propeller blade on the right propeller. The separated counterweight and clamp struck the adjacent blade and caused the blade to separate about 12 inches from the hub. The resultant imbalance caused severe vibration from the right engine. The propeller governor struck the engine cowling and broke into pieces. The flight crew shutdown the engine using the condition lever. The propeller did not feather when commanded by the flight crew, and it continued to windmill causing vibration and drag until landing. Metallurgical examination indicated a blade counterweight clamp screw failed causing the clamp to separate. The screw fracture surface initiated at the screw threads and had features typical of intergranular cracking. Cadmium, which is used as a plating on the screw after manufacturer, was present on the fracture surface.
Probable cause
Failure of a blade counterweight clamp retaining screw due to cadmium embrittlement which occurred during the manufacture process. This resulted in the counterweight clamp separating and striking the adjacent blade causing it to separate.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96IA109
- Event ID
- 20001208X05449
- Case number
- MIA96IA109
- 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: 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: ca50c45d8af45218d49e939e3d615b00a439419f975525a9a9c2cf4b458eb1a5; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:52:27.015Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N29YV; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.