NYC03FA001 · Beagle Aircraft B.206 Basset
Beagle Aircraft B.206 Basset · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during initial climb
From Moraine Air Park (I73) to Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03FA001
- 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
Beagle Aircraft B.206 Basset
- Aircraft type
- Beagle B-206
- 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
- N72KB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moraine Air Park (I73), Moraine, OHTo Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MD
- 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
- 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
- Total 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
- Fuel contamination; Stall/spin
- 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 › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Maintenance, annual inspection, overdue
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 arrived at the departure airport about the middle of April 2002, and remained parked until the day of the accident. On the day of the accident, a mechanic was asked by the pilot to help him because he was having trouble starting the airplane. When the mechanic arrived at the airplane, he drained about 2-1/2 gallons of water from the center sump drain located under the main fuselage, and the engine subsequently started. The airplane was then fueled with 224.5 gallons of aviation gasoline, and the mechanic added that he did not sump the airplane after it was fueled, nor did he observe the pilot perform visual inspection of the fuel. A witness observed the accident airplane as it was departing. He stated that the airplane's engines sounded like they were running good, but did not sound like they were developing full power. As the airplane continued down the runway, it appeared to be traveling very slowly, and not gaining sufficient speed for takeoff. The airplane lifted abruptly into the air about 3/4 of the way down the runway, and the landing gear was retracted. The airplane settled towards the ground, clearing the levee located at the departure end of the runway by a few feet. The airplane then began a climb again, reaching a height of about 120 feet, and proceeded straight out from the airport. About 30 seconds later, the airplane banked gently to the left, where a faint puff of black smoke was observed coming from an engine. As the bank continued, the airplane descended into a near vertical dive. The witness observed the top portion of the airplane as it was in the vertical dive, before it descended out of sight. The airplane came to rest upright in a residential area about 1 mile southwest of I73, and a post crash fire ensued. The airplane's most recent annual inspection was completed on March 29, 2001. Examination of the left engine propeller assembly, which was imbedded in a dirt crater, exhibited rearward bending to all three blades. No chordwise scratching was observed on any of the blades. Examination of the right engine propeller assembly, which was imbedded in a cement sidewalk, exhibited s-bending and chordwise scratches to all three blades. The pilot had applied for, and was granted, a ferry permit to fly the airplane the day of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilots inadequate preflight inspection, his operation of the airplane with an overdue annual inspection, and his failure to maintain airspeed after the failure of an engine which resulted in an inadvertent stall/spin. A factor related to the accident was the contaminated fuel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03FA001
- Event ID
- 20021010X05305
- Case number
- NYC03FA001
- 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: ff88aa40a1ac1570711842054ba52220c029d09a8716f7ad40c1bae605aec8f4; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:44:49.228Z.