Flight AT8000 · Beech BE-99
Beech BE-99 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Inuvik to Fairbanks International Airport (FAI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC89FA034
- 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 BE-99
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-99
- 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
- CFBCH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From InuvikTo Fairbanks International Airport (FAI), Fairbanks, 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 129: Foreign
- 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 · 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Fatigue
- Propeller system/accessories, blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE FLIGHT AT 8000 FEET ABOVE MEAN SEA LEVEL THE CO-PILOT NOTICED A 100 POUND TORQUE INCREASE ON THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE. DURING HIS ATTEMPT TO REDUCE THE TORQUE HE HEARD AN EXPLOSION, SAW SPARKS COME FROM THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE EXHAUST STACKS AND OBSERVED A SLOW TURNING PROPELLER AS THE ENTIRE ENGINE NACELLE DISAPPEARED BENEATH THE AIRPLANE. FULL POWER ON THE NUMBER ONE ENGINE ALLOWED THE CREW TO REDUCE THE RATE OF DESCENT TO 1,500 FOOT PER MINUTE AND THEY CRASH LANDED ON THE FROZEN RIVER. ON SITE EXAMINATION REVEALED ONE PROPELLER BLADE FROM THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE WAS MISSING AND THAT THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE HAD SEPARATED DURING THE IMPACT SEQUENCE. SUBSEQUENT METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION SHOWED A FATIGUE FRACTURE ON THE REMAINING STUB OF THE MISSING BLADE.
Probable cause
THE SEPARATION OF A SINGLE PROPELLER BLADE WHICH CAUSED THE DOWNWARD AND REARWARD DISPLACEMENT OF THE NUMBER TWO ENGINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC89FA034
- Event ID
- 20001213X27514
- Case number
- ANC89FA034
- 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: 975281573374b38d147e22cf78e6cb86f647502e213848db3621b81871ee8207; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:15:02.644Z.