Royal Air Freight Beech E18S accident
Beech E18S · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Greenwood County Airport (GRD) to Oakland County International Airport (PTK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90FA157
- 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
- 1 · 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 E18S
- 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
- N563W
- Operator
- Royal Air Freight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenwood County Airport (GRD), Greenwood, SCTo Oakland County International Airport (PTK), Pontiac, MI
- 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Wrong propeller feathered, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE RIGHT ENGINE LOST POWER DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB AFTER LIFT-OFF. A WITNESS HEARD A NOISE & OBSERVED FLAMES COMING FROM THE RIGHT ENGINE COWLING AS THE AIRPLANE CLIMBED. THE AIRPLANE ENTERED A TURN AFTER CLIMBING ABOUT 200 FT, DESCENDED THROUGH A SMALL GROVE OF TREES, CRASHED IN A PASTURE, AND BURNED. DURING TAKEOFF, THE PLANE'S GROSS WEIGHT WAS ABOUT 11,050 LBS & THE CG WAS BEHIND THE AFT LIMIT. ITS MAXIMUM CERTIFIED WEIGHT LIMIT WAS 9700 LBS. THE PILOT WAS AWARE OF A GROSS WEIGHT PROBLEM BEFORE TAKEOFF. AN EXAM REVEALED EVIDENCE THAT THE LEFT ENGINE PROPELLER WAS IN THE FEATHERED POSITION & THE RIGHT PROPELLER WAS NOT FEATHERED AT IMPACT. A CHECK OF THE RIGHT ENGINE DISCLOSED THAT THE NUMBER 3 CYLINDER INTAKE VALVE HAD FAILED FROM FATIGUE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER EMERGENCY PROCEDURE BY SHUTTING DOWN THE WRONG ENGINE, WHICH RESULTED IN A FORCED LANDING. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: FAILURE OF THE NUMBER THREE INTAKE VALVE IN THE RIGHT ENGINE DUE TO FATIGUE, AND TREES IN THE EMERGENCY LANDING AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90FA157
- Event ID
- 20001212X23885
- Case number
- ATL90FA157
- 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 1990-08-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 95ba12517aa7d8fdbd751a4d14b7025c90f8628fe0c2bd43bed795654b6a0f32; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:05:47.332Z.