ATL98FA002 · Beech 95-B55
Beech 95-B55 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From RYY to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98FA002
- 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
- 1 · 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
- N315K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From RYYTo not recorded
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the tower controller, the airplane took off and was about 1/2 mile off the end of the runway and about 300 feet above ground level (agl) when the pilot radioed that he was 'losing RPM'. Witnesses stated that the airplane was very low, about 150 to 200 feet. They said they saw the airplane bank hard to the left and impact the ground with the left wing. It then cartwheeled down the hill and burst into flames. The majority of the airplane was destroyed by impact and postcrash fire. Examination of both engines revealed normal operational signatures throughout. Examination of both propellers revealed damage consistent with the development of power. Both propellers impacted the ground, separated from the respective engines, and tumbled coming to rest in grassy areas. There was evidence that during impact, both engines were producing some power, and both propellers were rotating. The specific amount of power could not be quantified.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper emergency procedures and subsequent loss of aircraft control, while attempting to maneuver for a precautionary landing. A factor relating to the accident was: partial loss of power in one or both engines for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98FA002
- Event ID
- 20001208X08949
- Case number
- ATL98FA002
- 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: 666a6a7de9ceea74663311368a49b1045868138275b0fe9672811c09fa8a2b95; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:47:20.906Z.