MKC88FA173 · Aero Commander 500B
Aero Commander 500B · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Hays Regional Airport (HYS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC88FA173
- 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
Aero Commander 500B
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 500
- 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
- N1189Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hays Regional Airport (HYS)To not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 on ground/water
- 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 › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 10 MIN AFTER LANDING, DRG A CARGO OPN, THE PLT WAS PREPARING FOR THE NEXT LEG OF THE FLT, BUT WAS UNABLE TO MAKE A NORMAL START OF THE RGT ENG. HE ATTEMPTED TO START (AIR START) THE ENG BY WINDMILLING THE PROP ON A TAKEOFF TYPE OF RUN. HOWEVER, DRG THE ATTEMPT, HE LOST CONTROL OF THE ACFT & IT VEERED OFF THE RWY, CROSSED A TWY & WENT THRU A BOUNDRY FENCE BEFORE STOPPING. IT CAME TO REST, 160 DEG FROM THE RWY HDG. NO PRE-ACDNT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
OPERATION ATTEMPTED WITH KNOWN DEFICIENCIES IN EQUIPMENT, AND FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL. A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WAS: THE PILOT'S USE OF AN IMPROPER STARTING PROCEDURE & THE FENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC88FA173
- Event ID
- 20001213X26886
- Case number
- MKC88FA173
- 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: e09b680c87078cc4ecfab2a386b9dfa722479d481fd0a8fdad3d738341daede7; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:18:48.132Z.