Active Aero Charter Beech E18S accident
Beech E18S · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From Quincy Regional Airport Baldwin Field (UIN) to Willow Run Airport (YIP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87FA085
- 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
- 2 · 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
- N149R
- Operator
- Active Aero Charter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quincy Regional Airport Baldwin Field (UIN), Quincy, ILTo Willow Run Airport (YIP), Belleville, 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
- 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 › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Emergency procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT, AT NEAR GROSS WEIGHT (CG UNKNOWN), WAS ON INITIAL CLIMB AFTER TAKEOFF. A WITNESS REPORTED THAT ENGINES SOUNDEDNORMAL. AT ABOUT 400 FT AGL THE ACFT WAS REPORTED TO PITCH UP ABOUT 10 DEGREES, THEN LEVEL OFF AND ENTER A LEFT TURN. THE ACFT MADE ANOTHER LEFT TURN TO THE SSW. THE PILOT RPRTD THAT HE WAS RETURNING TO THE FIELD, BUT DID NOT STATE PROBLEM. THE WITNESS SAID THE ACFT WAS IN A 30 DEGREE LEFT BANK, TURNING TOWARD THE ARPT, WHEN THE ACFT STALLED AND DESCENDED TO THE GND IN A VERTICAL NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. FIRE/EXPLOSION AFTER IMPACT. LEFT PROP FND IN FEATHERED POSITION.NO ENGINE PROBLEM FOUND. ON 1/28/87, LT ENGINE LOST POWER AFTER TKOF; NO PROBLEM FOUND; UNABLE TO DUPLICATE. PLT HAD 2 ENGINE-OUT EXPERIENCES IN AIRPLANE PREVIOUSLY, BOTH WHEN AT LOW WEIGHT. SURROUNDING TERRAIN SUITABLE FOR OFF-AIRPORT LDG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87FA085
- Event ID
- 20001213X30199
- Case number
- CHI87FA085
- 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: 2eeef64756cfbb91a3ba8388683dd5197752b5b8b1f90f2b6576f3af7e26dc39; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:15:00.802Z.