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DEN91IA046 · Avions Marcel Dassault MISTERT FALCON 900 MISTERT FA

18 Feb 1991 · Eagle, CO, United States

Aviations Methods Avions Marcel Dassault MISTERT FALCON 900 MISTERT FA · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route

From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

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Event

NTSB case
DEN91IA046
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
Incident
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
Visual Meteorological Cond

Avions Marcel Dassault MISTERT FALCON 900 MISTERT FA

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
N90EW
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE), Eagle, COTo San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CA
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 · climb to 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
Minor

Cause areas

  • Combustion assembly, transition liner › Assembly
  • Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, improper
  • Turbine assembly, turbine wheel › Ruptured

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

N90EW WAS IN A CLIMBING TURN PASSING THROUGH 11500 FEET WHEN THE FLIGHT CREW FELT AND HEARD AN EXPLOSION. COCKPIT INSTRUMENTS INDICATED THAT THE LEFT ENGINE HAD FAILED. THE ENGINE WAS SECURED AND THE AIRCRAFT RETURNED TO EAGLE COUNTY AIRPORT WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. A SUBSEQUENT ENGINE EXAMINATION REVEALED AN ERROR OCCURRED IN THE ASSEMBLY OF THE MATING OF THE INNER TRANSITION LINER TO THE HP TURBINE NOZZLE DURING THE LAST MAJOR PERIODIC MAINTENANCE INSPECTION.

Probable cause

IMPROPER ENGINE MAINTENANCE BY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL, IMPROPER ASSEMBLY OF THE COMBUSTION ASSEMBLY TRANSITION LINER, AND THE RUPTURE OF THE FIRST STAGE LP TURBINE WHEEL.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DEN91IA046
Event ID
20001212X16438
Case number
DEN91IA046
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: f7acfcebed570ae562386fb81908ab7b0c1b0babef5ba03015b0a392245b97b6; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:43:45.279Z.