NYC91FA199 · Beech C23
Groton Navy Flying Club Beech C23 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From AIY · Atlantic City, NJ to Republic Airport (FRG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91FA199
- 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
- 3 · 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
Beech C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N9375S
- Operator
- Groton Navy Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From AIY · Atlantic City, NJTo Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, NY
- 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)
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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
- Engine assembly, crankshaft › Failure, total
- Object › Utility pole
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, major, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pleasantville, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT EXPERIENCED A POWER LOSS SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF WHILE OPERATING OVER A RESIDENTIAL AREA AT NIGHT. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK A TELEPHONE POLE, AND CRASHED AND BURNED IN A STREET. RECORDS INDICATE THE ENGINE HAD A PROP STRIKE AT 1828 HRS, WAS OVERHAULED AT 2164 HRS, AND OVERHAULED AGAIN AT 3407 HRS. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED AT 3486 HRS. NO RECORDS WERE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST OVERHAUL, HOWEVER WHEN EXAMINED AT THE 2ND OVERHAUL THE CRANKSHAFT WAS FOUND TO BE UNDERSIZED BY .003 INCH.. THE CRANKSHAFT HAD FAILED AT THE REAR OF THE NUMBER 3 CRANKPIN. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION FOUND THE FRACTURE ORIGINATED SUBSURFACE IN AN AREA OF STRESS. NITRIDING RESIDUE WAS FOUND IN CRACKS WHICH HAD NOT BEEN DETECTED BY NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING. THE FAA DOES NOT REQUIRE THE CERTIFICATION OF NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING OPERATORS.
Probable cause
A POWER LOSS DUE TO A FAILED CRANKSHAFT, WHILE OPERATING OVER UNSUITABLE TERRAIN. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE, THE NIGHT CONDITIONS, THE FAILURE OF MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO DETECT THE CRACKS USING MAGNAFLUX INSPECTIONS, THE LACK OF ADEQUATE PROCEDURES/DIRECTIONS ON DETECTION OF CRACKS, AND THE LACK OF QUALIFICATIONS/CERTIFICATION FOR OPERATORS CONDUCTING NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91FA199
- Event ID
- 20001212X17943
- Case number
- NYC91FA199
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-08-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 59a833c78848be15455c29920b3bded82b444aa8fcfcfb624d77a8669527c43f; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:39:03.839Z.