LAX97LA084 · Beech N35
Beech N35 · Accident: propeller failure/malfunction during takeoff
From P14 to Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA084
- 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 N35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N7HB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From P14To Flagstaff Pulliam Airport (FLG), Flagstaff, AZ
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Propeller failure/malfunction
- 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
- Faa(other/organization) › Information unclear(language)
- Maintenance, compliance with ad › Not performed
- Propeller system/accessories, hub › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Moments after lift-off, the propeller separated, & the aircraft (acft) veered off the runway, contacted soft soil, & nosed over. Investigation revealed the propeller hub failed forward of the attachment flange, around the circumference of the hub. The pilot said he had performed a thorough preflight & run-up, & found no discrepancies. Metallurgical exam of the hub revealed crack arrest marks, typical of fatigue, emanating from the 4th thread root on the aft piece of the hub. The crack was estimated to be several inches long before failure occurred. Review of records disclosed that McCauley Service Bulletin 179A, McCauley Service Letter 1989-5, & Airworthiness Directive (AD) 89-26-08 had not been complied with during the previous 5 annual inspections. These referenced propellers which should have incorporated an oil-filled configuration with red dye that would become visible once a hub had begun to crack. The AD cited McCauley '2A36C23/84B-0' Constant Speed Propellers. Both McCauley & the FAA engineering directorate, which wrote the AD, reported the intent was to capture all 2A36C23 hubs regardless of blade models. The hub on the accident acft was a McCauley 2A36C23-P-E, with blade Models S-84B-0 installed (rather than blade Models 84B-0). Unanimous response from mechanics & IA's, who worked on the acft during the previous 5 annuals inspections, was that the AD was not applicable since the propeller was not a '2A36C23/84B-0' as stated in the AD.
Probable cause
fatigue failure of the propeller hub, which resulted in separation of the propeller assembly and reduction of aircraft control. Also causal was: the resultant lack of compliance with Airworthiness Directive (AD) 89-26-08, due to ambiguous and unclear wording of the AD as issued by the FAA. Factors relating to the accident were: non-compliance with McCauley Service Bulletin 179A and McCauley Service Letter 1989-5, and an encounter with soft terrain during the aborted takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA084
- Event ID
- 20001208X07314
- Case number
- LAX97LA084
- 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: 5983c9294d22c78885ade386cb8fe0e29ee74f728419205457da4af474d517fa; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:31:04.594Z.