CHI94LA046 · Cessna 550
Kansas Air Inv Cessna 550 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to New Century AirCenter Airport (IXD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94LA046
- 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
Cessna 550
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 550
- 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
- N550RD
- Operator
- Kansas Air Inv
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo New Century AirCenter Airport (IXD), Olathe, KS
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Object › Bird(s)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOTS STATED THEY WERE ABOUT 200 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND AFTER TAKEOFF WHEN THEY HEARD A LOUD BANG AND THE AIRPLANE YAWED TO LEFT AND RIGHT. INSTRUMENTS INDICATED A LOSS OF RIGHT ENGINE POWER, AND A SUBSTANTIAL FUEL LEAK ON THE LEFT SIDE. THE FLIGHT CREW DECLARED AN EMERGENCY AND RECEIVED RADAR VECTORS TO MIDWAY AIRPORT, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, WHERE THEY LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. THE PILOTS REPORTED THEY STRUCK A FLOCK OF GEESE DURING INITIAL CLIMB. WEATHER CONDITIONS AT DEPARTURE WERE REPORTED TO BE 200 FOOT OVERCAST, 1/2 MILE VISIBILITY IN FOG, TEMPERATURE AND DEW POINT OF 36 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT.
Probable cause
the collision with birds/geese shortly after takeoff. Reduced visibility in fog was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94LA046
- Event ID
- 20001211X13833
- Case number
- CHI94LA046
- 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: fb150ccd02d5d459161232210ebda7d51d899033f51dee965c677834813d4e0a; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:27:01.952Z.