May Air Express Beech G18S accident
Beech G18S · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP) to Duluth International Airport (DLH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA254
- 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 G18S
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 18
- 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
- N621KE
- Operator
- May Air Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)To Duluth International Airport (DLH), Duluth, MN
- 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
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not obtained/maintained
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft departed off the 8,200-foot long runway 12L and while crossing 300 feet altitude and turning through 080 degrees to his assigned heading of 020, the right engine stopped developing power. The pilot checked the throttles, mixtures and propeller controls full forward, the boost pumps ON, and the fuel selected to the MAIN tanks. He then made the decision to turn back to runway 12L and execute an emergency landing. The pilot reported that as he turned into the dead engine he felt that 'the airplane was going to roll over on her back so I retarded the left engine to idle.' This resulted in a high sink rate, which the pilot attempted to correct with an increase in left engine power. Once again, the pilot felt as if he was losing control of the aircraft and again idled the left engine. He then lowered the landing gear, flattened the attitude and 'mushed' hard onto the runway. The left main landing gear collapsed and the right engine 'came alive' after which the pilot secured both mixtures. Post-crash examination by FAA personnel revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the premature gear retraction and proper runway alignment not maintained during takeoff by the pilot. An additional cause was the proper descent rate not maintained by the pilot. Contributing factors were the carburetor icing conditions
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA254
- Event ID
- 20001212X19212
- Case number
- CHI99LA254
- 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: 802acb2b1220aa243fb79e1c599b91bbb834ec847a8f10dde7963ae2ed1eafbb; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:55:08.082Z.