DEN89LA144 · Beauchesne/Wells GLASAIR TD
Beauchesne/Wells GLASAIR TD · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC) to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN89LA144
- 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
Beauchesne/Wells GLASAIR TD
- Aircraft type
- Beauchesne/wells GLASAIR TD
- 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
- N544BM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC), Tucumcari, NMTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NM
- 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
- 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
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
- Propeller system/accessories › Vibration
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT DRG FLT, THE PROP BEGAN TO WOBBLE & SHOOK THE ACFT VIOLENTLY. HE TURNED THE ACFT AWAY FROM MTNS TO FIND A SUITABLE AREA FOR AN EMERGENCY LANDING. HOWEVER, AT AN ALT OF ABOUT 400' AGL, THE PROP SEPD & THE PLT WAS FORCED TO LAND ON DESERT TERRAIN. DRG THE LANDING, THE ACFT WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE PROP HAD BEEN MOUNTED ON THE ENG WITH AN EXTENSION, BUT THE EXTENSION DID NOT HAVE A MEANS TO PRECISELY CENTER THE PROP. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE PROP BEGAN A SEVERE VIBRATION, THE PROP MOUNTING BOLTS FAILED & THE PROP SEPD FROM THE ACFT.
Probable cause
IMPROPER INSTALLATION OF THE PROPELLER WHICH RESULTED IN SEVERE VIBRATION AND FAILURE OF THE PROPELLER MOUNTING BOLTS, & THE SEPARATION OF THE PROPELLER FROM THE AIRCRAFT. ROUGH/UNEVEN DESERT TERRAIN CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN89LA144
- Event ID
- 20001213X28559
- Case number
- DEN89LA144
- 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: 9ba543c6c1a696406f88ae03a71729aa210095bdf92d336f801e0705bd84d6d2; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:29:19.552Z.