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NYC97LA190 · Beech 58TC

15 Aug 1997 · E. FARMINGDALE, NY, United States

Beech 58TC · Accident: fire while standing

From an unrecorded airport to Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC97LA190
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 58TC

Aircraft type
Beechcraft 58
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
N2152L
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP), Islip, NY
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
Standing · engine(s) start-up
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
Fire
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 › Emergency procedure, not followed
  • Pilot in command › Starting procedure, improper

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot was experiencing difficulty in starting the left engine. He engaged the starter and continued priming. He then heard a backfire and observed flames under the wing. He released the starter, closed the mixtures, turned off the fuel, and exited the airplane. The fire was extinguished by airport fire fighting personnel. According to the FAA Approved Flight Manual for the Beech 58TC, priming should be accomplished in 2 to 3 second bursts, after which, the mixture control should be returned to idle cut-off. Also, according to the flight manual, the first four items on the Emergency Procedure for ENGINE FIRE - ON THE GROUND called for the mixtures to be brought to idle cut off, continue to crank the affected engine, fuel selectors off, and throttle full open.

Probable cause

the pilot's improper starting procedure, which led to an engine fire; and his failure to follow the emergency checklist, which contributed to the level of damage that the airplane received.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC97LA190
Event ID
20001208X08737
Case number
NYC97LA190
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: 0b5f488a5e6b363835df35351324cead48c7d64c0e40915b0cb7d34de238107b; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:50:11.549Z.