MIA02LA166 · Beech C24R
Beech C24R · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02LA166
- 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
Beech C24R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 24
- 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
- N6698D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), Columbia, SC
- 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
- Pilot in command › Precautionary landing, performed
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported half-way into his flight from Savannah, Georgia to Columbia, South Carolina, he noticed a "smoke smell" and "smoke rising in cockpit". About the same time the red "in transient" landing gear light illuminated steady. The pilot positioned the landing gear handle "up" with no results, so he turned off all electrical power, cranked the gear down manually, and declared an emergency with Columbia approach control. He made a precautionary landing to a vacant field, and the right wing collided with a tree. Postcrash examination by FAA and NTSB personnel could not duplicate any "smoke" or overheat condition. The landing gear "power pack" was located behind the cockpit, and evidence of hydraulic leakage at that location was revealed. The inspectors stated that the pilot may have smelled hydraulic fumes.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to execute the proper remedial action for hydraulic leak fumes in the cockpit, and his decision to perform an immediate precautionary landing to a vacant field, resulting in collision with a tree. A factor in the accident was the occurrence of a hydraulic leak while in flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02LA166
- Event ID
- 20020909X01555
- Case number
- MIA02LA166
- 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, coordinates. 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: 53fc8d70da8f877ad87a85a1adc4ec3b1d6aaeddf3174e20fce6272be16ddca5; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:21:04.541Z.