NYC98FA112 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK) to Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98FA112
- 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
- 2 · 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 A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N4507S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nantucket Memorial Airport (ACK), Nantucket, MATo Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Danbury, CT
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Engine assembly, bearing › Shifted
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Middletown, RI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
At 6,000 feet, the instrument-rated pilot reported an engine failure, and received vectors to an airport. After the turn, the airplane was 6 nautical miles away, at 4,000 feet. After descending through clouds, the pilot reported, at 1,200 feet, the airport in sight. The airplane then descended rapidly, straight ahead, and hit the ground upright, about 1/2 mile short of the runway. The initial impact point was at the far end of a pasture, which extended off to the pilot's right. The airplane then bounced and collided with a stone wall. Witnesses thought the airplane would make the runway, but it appeared to level off, climb slightly, then fall forward. The stall warning horn sounded upon exiting the clouds, and remained on until impact. The landing gear was in transit at impact. Radar revealed a groundspeed of 81 knots at 1,200 feet, which decreased to 62 knots by 400 feet. The operating handbook stated that power off, 81 knots were required to assure controllability during the flare. The engine crankshaft was found broken in two places. The number two bearing was pounded, and had moved in its saddle. Saddle oil lubrication holes were blocked by metal, and the crankshaft exhibited ladder cracking.
Probable cause
The shift of the number 2 engine bearing, which in turn blocked oil lubrication, and resulted in crankshaft failure. Also causal, was the pilot's decision to continue toward the airport instead of performing a forced landing to an available field. Factors include the relatively low ceiling, and the pilot's airspeed control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98FA112
- Event ID
- 20001211X10172
- Case number
- NYC98FA112
- 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: b50bbe2d16ad11a6823aaa4352024a85f0617a346d81326501c28b1cf4b2f26f; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:34:27.258Z.