Corporate Air Aero Commander AC-500B accident
Aero Commander AC-500B · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to L M Clayton Airport (OLF)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93LA047
- 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
Aero Commander AC-500B
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander AC-500
- 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
- N2783Q
- Operator
- Corporate Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo L M Clayton Airport (OLF), Wolf Point, MT
- 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 engine power
- 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
- 1 engine
- Landing gear › Unlocked
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Billings, MT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED LOSS OF POWER ON LEFT ENGINE DURING INITIAL CLIMB AFTER TAKEOFF AND HE INITIATED A TURN BACK TO THE ARPT FOR LANDING. HE REPORTED LOSS OF POWER ON THE RIGHT ENGINE WHILE MANEUVERING TO LAND AND HE INITIATED A FORCED LANDING. THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN SHORT OF THE RWY BEFORE THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR WAS DOWN AND LOCKED, AND THE GEAR COLLAPSED. BOTH ENGINES PRODUCED FULL POWER WHEN TESTED ABOUT 45 MINUTES AFTER THE ACCIDENT. EXAM OF THE ACFT AFTER THE MISHAP DID NOT REVEAL A MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE THAT CAUSED LOSS OF ENGINE POWER.
Probable cause
LOSS OF ENGINE POWER ON BOTH ENGINES FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS AND LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR NOT DOWN AND LOCKED ON TOUCHDOWN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93LA047
- Event ID
- 20001211X16250
- Case number
- SEA93LA047
- 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: 6f2a5bb831c5308c75a64f19a8f5085788751a92e2297a50e0d311a2e291fe74; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:42:10.786Z.