NYC89FA092 · Cessna S550
Executive Air Fleet Cessna S550 · Accident: loss of engine power during landing
From Westchester County Airport (HPN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC89FA092
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Cessna S550
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 550
- 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
- N29X
- Operator
- Executive Air Fleet
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, NYTo 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Powerplant controls, improper use of
- Thrust reverser › Popped/tripped
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES RPRTD ACFT WAS HI DRG APCH & LNDD NOSEWHEEL 1ST ABT 1600' BYD THRESHOLD, THEN BCM AIRBORNE & BOUNCED 2 TIMES. PLT STATED THAT BFR TCHDWN, HE STARTED TO 'SPOOL UP' ENGS, BUT NOTED LACK OF RESPONSE, THEN RETARDED THROTTLES & LNDD. HE SAID HE APPLIED BRAKES & SELECTED 'FULL REVERSE' & NOTED NO RESPONSE. RPRTDLY, NOSEWHEEL 'SKIPPED INTO AIR' WHILE ACFT STILL HAD FLYING SPEED. WITH INSUFFICIENT RWY RMNG TO STOP, HE ELECTED TO STOW REVERSERS & BGN GO-ARND. HE NOTED NO RESPONSE FM ENGS, THO ACFT HAD BCM AIRBORNE. ACFT THEN SETTLED BYD DEP END OF RWY & CRASHED ON ROUGH TRRN. EXAM REVEALED ENGS HAD INGESTED TWIGS, GRASS & DIRT. REVERSE LOAD LIMITERS (L/L) ON BOTH ENGS WERE FND IN TRIPPED PSN. FLT MAN STATED THAT TO AVOID ACTUATION OF L/L, DO NOT ADVANCE PRIMARY THROTTLE AFTER RTRNG REVERSE THRUST LEVER TO STOW UNTIL UNLOCK LIGHT IS OUT; MAINT REQUIRED TO RESET ACTUATED L/L. L/L WAS INCORPORATED ON THRUST REVERSER TO REDUCE ENG PWR TO IDLE, IF INADVERTENTLY DEPLOYED IN FLT. DRG POST-ACDNT CHK, BOTH ENGS WERE OPERD TO 85% AFTER L/L RESET.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER USE OF THE POWERPLANT CONTROLS, WHICH RESULTED IN ACTUATION (TRIPPING) OF THE REVERSE LOAD LIMITERS ON THE THRUST REVERSERS AND SUBSEQUENT REDUCTION OF AVAILABLE POWER IN BOTH ENGINES. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S MISJUDGEMENT OF DISTANCE, EXCESSIVE AIRSPEED, AND IMPROPER FLARE DURING THE LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC89FA092
- Event ID
- 20001213X27793
- Case number
- NYC89FA092
- 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: 2201507a706890b977c9a8df31add21579b766ea219fa99fa90bc162f499c4d6; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:16:51.096Z.