Pacific Air Charter Beech 55 accident
Beech 55 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91FA139
- 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 55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N711RY
- Operator
- Pacific Air Charter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, 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 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 control in flight
- 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 › Airspeed(vlof), misjudged
- Pilot in command › Rotation, premature
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Burbank, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AFTER TRAVELING ABOUT 1,000 FT ON ITS TAKEOFF ROLL, THE AIRCRAFT WAS SEEN BY WITNESSES AS BEGINNING ITS ROTATION. TOWER PERSONNEL REPORTED THEY COULD SEE THE BELLY OF THE AIRCRAFT. THE AIRCRAFT ROLLED LEFT, ITS LEFT WING CONTACTED THE RUNWAY, AND IT CONTINUED TO AN INVERTED POSITION. THE AIRCRAFT SLID DOWN THE RUNWAY AND THEN VEERED OFF ON TO THE GRASS ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRCRAFT CAME TO A REST, INVERTED, ABOUT 100 FT OFF THE RUNWAY AND ABOUT 1,380 FT FROM THE LOCATION WHERE THE TAKEOFF ROLL BEGAN. THE AIRCRAFT OPERATING HANDBOOK INDICATED THE NORMAL TAKEOFF DISTANCE TO THE POINT OF ROTATION AND LIFTOFF SHOULD BE BETWEEN 1,350 AND 1,400 FT. THIS DISTANCE WAS COMPUTED USING THE AIRCRAFT'S WEIGHT AND THE REPORTED WEATHER AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. A DEPARTING BOEING 737 WAS CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF ABOUT 5 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT AIRCRAFT'S TAKEOFF ROLL ON THE OPPOSITE RUNWAY. THE WINDS WERE CALM.
Probable cause
THE PILOT MISJUDGED THE LIFTOFF SPEED, AND PREMATURELY ROTATED THE AIRCRAFT FOR TAKEOFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91FA139
- Event ID
- 20001212X16618
- Case number
- LAX91FA139
- 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: 52863289631f96dd65f1ef1180dc2de4571b86886dfa540038a932254a1c27f5; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:56:08.754Z.