F.S. Flying Service Beech E18F accident
Beech E18F · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) to Kodiak Airport (ADQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90FA027
- 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 E18F
- 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
- N900TH
- Operator
- F.S. Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)To Kodiak Airport (ADQ), Kodiak, AK
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft weight and balance › Exceeded
- Company/operator management › Supervision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CAPT RPRTD THAT AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE ACFT BEGAN A LEFT ROLL AS THE LANDING GEAR WAS RETRACTED. HE CORRECTED WITH AILERON/RUDDER & LOWERED THE NOSE, BUT THE ACFT ROLLED TO THE RIGHT, THEN BACK TO THE LEFT. SUBSEQUENTLY, HE LANDED THE ACFT NEAR THE DEP END OF THE RWY WITH THE LANDING GEAR RETRACTED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD BEEN LOADED TO A WT OF ABOUT 12,850 LBS. THE MAX GROSS WT LIMIT FOR THE ACFT WAS 11,500 LBS. ALSO, THE ACFT'S CENTER-OF- GRAVITY WAS ESTIMATED TO BE ABOUT 3 INCHES AFT OF THE AFT LIMIT. THE COMPANY DIRECTOR RPRTD THAT WHEN THE CARGO SHIP- MENT(S) WERE DELIVERED TO THE COMPANY, THE WEIGHT(S) WERE NOT CHECKED PRIOR TO LOADING THE ACFT.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY COMPANY/OPERATOR PERSONNEL AND INADEQUATE PREFLIGHT PLANNING/PREPARATION BY THE CAPTAIN, WHICH RESULTED IN AN IMPROPERLY LOADED AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC90FA027
- Event ID
- 20001212X22355
- Case number
- ANC90FA027
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: ed8d0be5676cc8dfd97ae2d1c568985fe4eed83dc4b3002a091df98daf7db0f6; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:05:39.342Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N900TH; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.