Britt Airways Beech 1900C accident
Beech 1900C · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to Telluride Regional Airport (TEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93LA011
- 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
- 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
Beech 1900C
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 1900
- 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
- N317BH
- Operator
- Britt Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN)To Telluride Regional Airport (TEX), Telluride, CO
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Ground personnel › Clearance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER STARTING THE NO. 2 ENGINE, THE CAPTAIN SIGNALLED THE RAMP AGENT TO DISCONNECT THE GROUND POWER UNIT (GPU). THE AGENT SIGNALLED THE CAPTAIN THE GPU HAD BEEN DISCONNECTED AND THE CAPTAIN VERIFIED THIS BY OBSERVING THE 'EXT PWR' ANNUNCIATOR LIGHT HAD EXTINGUISHED AND THERE WAS NO VOLTAGE TO THE EXTERNAL POWER SELECTOR ON THE VOLTMETER. AFTER STARTING THE NO. 1 ENGINE, THE CAPTAIN SIGNALLED THE RAMP AGENT HE WAS READY TO TAXI. THE AGENT GAVE AN ALL CLEAR SIGNAL AND DIRECTED HIM TO MAKE A HARD RIGHT TURN. AS THE AIRPLANE WAS PIVOTING RIGHT, THE AFT PORTION OF THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GPU, RUPTURING THE PRESSURE VESSEL. THE CAPTAIN SAID THE DISCONNECTED GPU WAS NOT VISIBLE FROM THE COCKPIT.
Probable cause
THE RAMP AGENT MISJUDGING THE CLEARANCE BETWEEN THE AIRPLANE AND GPU. A FACTOR WAS: UNAVAILABILITY OF PROPER GROUND ASSISTANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93LA011
- Event ID
- 20001211X16027
- Case number
- DEN93LA011
- 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: 1f3ea800e2a61801c0242da341d41465b3b0126d8c24abb75acdd00497b709f9; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:42:57.189Z.