Gibson Aviation Beech 58 incident
Beech 58 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO84IA004
- 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
- Incident
- 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 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N72TM
- Operator
- Gibson Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Washington, DCTo Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NC
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Engine assembly, cylinder › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT MADE AN EMERGENCY LANDING ON RWY 18 FOLLOWING A LOSS OF POWER IN THE RT ENG & A SUBSEQUENT IN-FLIGHT FIRE. INVESTIGATION REVEALED A CRACK IN THE #1 CYL THAT ORIGINATED AT THE EXHAUST PORT, DOWNSTREAM OF THE VALVE. THE CRACK PROPAGATED THROUGH FATIQUE TO THE TOP SPARK PLUG HOLE. EVENTUALLY, IT PROGRESSED TO THE POINT THAT THE FLAME PATH (DURING THE COMBUSITION CYCLES), TORCHED THROUGH NEAR THE SPARK PLUG HOLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO84IA004
- Event ID
- 20001214X40606
- Case number
- BFO84IA004
- 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: 0b476f0aa7605d61336ebf0d82bc225cd068dd9d62c52e16244709f21a5d598b; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:37:32.970Z.