MIA03IA062 · Cessna 500
Gulf Atlantic Airways Cessna 500 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA03IA062
- 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
- 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
Cessna 500
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 500
- 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
- N891CA
- Operator
- Gulf Atlantic Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), Fort Lauderdale, FLTo Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FL
- 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 (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
- Compressor assembly, impeller › Fatigue
- Compressor assembly, impeller › Scored
- Compressor assembly, impeller › Separation
- Other maintenance personnel › Inadequate quality control
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 experienced an uncontained rupture of the high-pressure compressor (HPC) impeller in the No. 2 engine during takeoff. The flight crew stated that at about 40 knots during the take off roll/run, there was a loud bang, followed by the engine fan passing by the right side cockpit window, and the captain aborted the takeoff, secured the engine, and exited the runway. There were no injuries to either of the flight crew who were the only persons onboard the airplane during the positioning flight, and the airplane incurred minor damage. Initial on-scene examination of the No. 2 engine revealed it had experienced a penetration of the engine case in the plane of the HPC impeller. There was a large hole in the top of the engine cowling at approximately 1:00 aft looking forward, just forward of the thrust reverser clamshell. The missing segment of the HPC impeller was not located. The examination revealed the HPC impeller had separated from the HPC and HPT (high-pressure turbine). A metallurgical examination of the impeller revealed that the fracture was consistent with there having been a low-cycle fatigue crack that initiated along the circumferential machining feature on the aft face of the impeller. River lines were observed to be emanating from the aft face, consistent with the crack having initiated in the area of the groove and ultimately separating the HPC impeller from the engine. According to maintenance records, the impeller had a total of 7311.5 hours/6116 cycles when installed at the last overhaul of the engine on December 13, 1996. The engine had since accrued 1,582.1 hours /1,760 cycles, for a total of 7,876 cycles since new. The cyclic life limit on the impeller is 8,400 cycles.
Probable cause
Inadequate quality control following overhaul of the high-pressure compressor (HPC) impeller by other maintenance personnel that resulted in a machining groove on the aft face of the HPC impeller being undetected, which resulted in a fatigue fracture and an uncontained separation of the HPC impeller from the engine during the takeoff roll/run, and the pilot rejecting the takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA03IA062
- Event ID
- 20030224X00252
- Case number
- MIA03IA062
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-02-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5a09a1cd948d6c2f6dfd249a148f7f9f267c02c3155c19b2a17dd6122d5c9fe0; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:35:55.970Z.