CHI01LA302 · Swearingen SA226-T
Swearingen SA226-T · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Dupage Airport (DPA) to Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA302
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Swearingen SA226-T
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA226
- 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
- N104BR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dupage Airport (DPA), DuPage, ILTo Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF), Springfield, MO
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was substantially damaged during a takeoff roll on runway 1L (6,700 feet by 100 feet, dry grooved concrete). A wind from 050 degrees at 10 knots was recorded by the airport's automated surface observing system. The airplane veered towards the left when the pilot deselected nose wheel steering at approximately 60 knots. Examination of the airplane revealed that the trailing edge flaps and their respective cockpit control were in the 1/2 flap position. Two of left propeller's start locks were engaged. The third start lock was damaged. Two of the right propeller's start locks were not engaged. The right propellar's remaining start lock cam had a witness mark prior to the locking point of the cam. The airplane's checklist states that the flaps are to be in the retracted position and the engine's start locks are to be disengaged prior to takeoff. Also, the airplane flight manual does not have performance data for takeoff configurations with 1/2 flaps. Examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the checklist not followed and the directional control not maintained by the pilot. A contributing factor was the left propeller’s start locks being engaged.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA302
- Event ID
- 20010904X01875
- Case number
- CHI01LA302
- 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: 4ef21cd2b3302397fd1918229d22e954ea494f9c2982454f80222e7a28163274; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:36:52.739Z.