Kalitta Flying Service Beech C-45G accident
Beech C-45G · Accident: cargo shift on approach
From James M. Cox Dayton International Airport (DAY) to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93FA016
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech C-45G
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft C-45
- 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
- N7770B
- Operator
- Kalitta Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From James M. Cox Dayton International Airport (DAY), Dayton, OHTo Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MD
- 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
- Approach · IFR missed approach
- 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
- Cargo shift
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Security of cargo, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SUPERVISED THE LOADING OF THE AIRPLANE. ACCORDING TO INFO FROM A PERSON THAT HELPED LOAD THE PLANE, THE BILL OF LADING, AND ACTUAL WEIGHTS AND MEASUREMENTS OF THE CARGO AFTER THE ACCIDENT, THE PLANE WAS LOADED TO A GROSS WEIGHT OF 11,979 LBS WITH THE CG 2.7 INCHES BEHIND THE AFT LIMIT. AT THE DESTINATION, THE FLIGHT WAS VECTORED FOR AN ILS RUNWAY 10 APPROACH. ABOUT 3 MI FROM THE RUNWAY, THE PILOT WAS TOLD TO MAKE A MISSED APPROACH DUE TO INADEQUATE SEPARATION FROM TRAFFIC. THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED, BUT SOON THEREAFTER, RADAR CONTACT WITH THE PLANE WAS LOST. WITNESSES SAW THE PLANE DESCEND FROM A LOW CLOUD LAYER BEFORE IT CRASHED. ONE WITNESS SAID ITS WINGS WERE MOVING FROM SIDE TO SIDE AND THE PLANE WAS FALLING FASTER THAN IT WAS MOVING FORWARD. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THE PLANE HAD IMPACTED IN A FLAT ATTITUDE WITH LITTLE FORWARD MOVEMENT. FOUR CARGO STRAPS WERE FOUND LOOSE WITH NO SIGN OF TENSILE OVERLOAD; 3 OTHERS AND A RESTRAINING BOARD WERE FOUND LOOSE AS IF THEY HAD NOT BEEN USED. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS FOUND. THE WIND WAS FROM 090 DEG AT 21 GUSTING 32 KTS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO PROPERLY SECURE THE CARGO, WHICH ALLOWED A SHIFT IN THE CENTER OF GRAVITY DURING A MISSED APPROACH MANEUVER AND RESULTED IN SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL AND FLYING SPEED. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ASSURE THE AIRPLANE WAS LOADED WITHIN ITS PROPER WEIGHT AND BALANCE LIMITATIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93FA016
- Event ID
- 20001211X16128
- Case number
- BFO93FA016
- 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: 0da88d3e0a171438d1ef5643960ff7d2c33bbecdf2dc2d0c0e9fa84ec2a6f316; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:55:00.327Z.