Maine Flight Center Flight 710
Aerostar 600A · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Presque Isle International Airport (PQI) to Bangor International Airport (BGR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98FA092
- 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
- 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
Aerostar 600A
- Aircraft type
- Aerostar 600
- 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
- N7527S
- Operator
- Maine Flight Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Presque Isle International Airport (PQI)To Bangor International Airport (BGR), Bangor, ME
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Mapleton, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The twin-engine Aerostar departed on Runway 1. While on initial climb, after take-off, witnesses observed the airplane roll to the left until it became inverted, after which the nose dropped and the airplane impacted the ground in a near vertical nose down attitude. The fuselage was consumed with a post crash fire. On-site examination revealed the wing flaps and landing gear were retracted. No evidence of a mechanical failure or malfunction was found relating to the airplane, engines, or propellers. The investigation revealed that both propellers were rotating and absorbing power at the time of impact. The winds were reported from 360 degrees at 17 knots, with gusts to 25 knots.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot to maintain control of the airplane during takeoff for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98FA092
- Event ID
- 20001211X09934
- Case number
- NYC98FA092
- 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: f9afef835c05fe0c1ea03e2534b46a5b083dc2196bbf12824be93108050c30e6; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:24:35.628Z.