DEN02FA106 · Beech B19
Beech B19 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From 1V9 · Delta, CO to Southwest Georgia Regional Airport (ABY)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN02FA106
- 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
- 1 · 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 B19
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 19
- 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
- N5119R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1V9 · Delta, COTo Southwest Georgia Regional Airport (ABY), Albany, GA
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had recently undergone a pre-purchase annual inspection. The operator had purchased the airplane from a private individual, and the pilot had volunteered to ferry it to its new owner as a means of accumulating flight time. The previous owner flew the airplane the previous day and reported no discrepancies. The airplane was then serviced to its 60-gallon capacity. On the morning of the accident, the pilot taxied to the end of the runway and performed pretakeoff checks. Witnesses said the magneto checks sounded normal, albeit brief. As takeoff power was applied, the engine "began to pop, stutter, and sputter," and "continued to do so the entire length of the runway." The engine was "producing less than full power, about 1,700 to 1,800 rpm," and the airplane was "not accelerating." The airplane lifted off near the end of the 5,600-foot runway (1.5 percent uphill grade), flew in ground effect and barely cleared sagebrush and a barbed wire perimeter fence. The left wing dipped and the airplane disappeared below the mesa and into a valley. The airplane struck the ground next to a golf course, exploded, and burned. A family relative said that the pilot had never flown into or out of high elevation airports, and was unsure of what to expect. The pilot's toxicology was positive for diazepam, a tranquilizer. Valium, its generic name, is a tranquilizer and may cause drowziness. It is contraindicated for flying.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to properly plan and compensate for the high density altitude conditions, resulting in partial engine power during takeoff, his failure to abort the takeoff, and his failure to maintain aircraft control on initial climb. Contributing factors were the high density altitude conditions, the pilot's total lack of experience in flying in these conditions, and an inadvertent stall/mush.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN02FA106
- Event ID
- 20020920X05187
- Case number
- DEN02FA106
- 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: cfcc20f263ab3741324d0a245115b05bb72da41c972990ba2abb66b29cab42b6; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:49:30.109Z.