FTW97LA200 · Beech BE-56TC
Beech BE-56TC · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid while maneuvering
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to Nashville International Airport (BNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA200
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech BE-56TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-56
- 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
- N7890R
- Operator
- Howard Boyle
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH)To Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TN
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to landing area (emergency)
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Immediately after takeoff, the pilot informed the control tower that he was going to return to land. While landing, the left wing of the airplane struck the runway. He stated that a loose dog distracted him during the preflight as he had to close a hangar door to prevent the dog from entering. During takeoff roll, the engine instruments appeared normal, except for the airspeed indicator, which indicated 'sixty' knots. He continued down the 7,000 foot runway, and lifted off with the airspeed indicator still indicating about 'sixty'. After lift off, the pilot knew something was wrong and told the tower he was going to make a right turn to downwind and return for landing. After landing, the pilot noticed that the left wing and left propeller were damaged and that the pitot tube cover was still installed on the pitot tube. The estimated takeoff weight of the aircraft was about 5,100 pounds. The manufacturer's published airspeed for lift off at 5,500 pounds gross weight is 89 knots. The measured cloud cover (ceiling) at the time of the accident was 100 feet overcast with 1 mile visibility
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to perform an adequate preflight (did not remove pitot tube protective covering prior to flight) which resulted in an inaccurate cockpit airspeed indication during takeoff roll and subsequent emergency landing. Factors were, the pilot's diverted attention while performing his preflight (loose animal on the ramp), the pilot's failure to abort the takeoff after noticing an airspeed anomaly during takeoff roll, and the low ceiling (100 feet overcast) the pilot encountered after lift off and while returning to land.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA200
- Event ID
- 20001208X07922
- Case number
- FTW97LA200
- 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: b706b782e9eee1ebf95a68e8a5e6eb229780344039b73cd809f5820be0bf991d; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:36:04.383Z.