ATL03FA136 · Beech BE-55
Beech BE-55 · Accident while maneuvering
From Barrow County Airport (WDR) to Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03FA136
- 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 BE-55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-55
- 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
- N62JF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Barrow County Airport (WDR), Winder, GATo Gwinnett County Briscoe Field (LZU), Lawrenceville, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Door › Not secured
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, 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
A pilot who was holding short for takeoff on runway 5 behind the accident airplane stated the accident airplane became airborne just past taxiway "C" intersection. The airplane reached about 10 feet when the nose dropped down abruptly to the right, the airplane collided with the runway, and bounced back into the air. The pilot observed a dark shape on the right side of the airplane and concluded the accident airplane cabin door had opened. The accident airplane was observed to make a shallow crosswind turn to the left, nose high, at a slow airspeed. The pilot stated he called the accident pilot on the airplane radio and asked if he was ok. The accident pilot stated he had problems and was going to make an emergency landing followed by, " I am not going to make it." A witness on the ground stated he observed the airplane make a steep left bank estimated between 40 to 45 degree angle of bank. The airplane collided with a tree, rolled to the left, pitched nose down, hit a power line and collided with the ground. A post crash fire ensued. Examination of the crash site revealed the airplane collided with a tree and the ground. The cabin door lock was not locked. The right propeller blade tips were curled aft and all three-propeller blades on the left engine sustained minimal impact damage. No anomalies were noted with the left and right engine assembly.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation in which he failed to secure the cabin door which diverted his attention and resulted in the failure to maintain directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03FA136
- Event ID
- 20030910X01502
- Case number
- ATL03FA136
- 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: 783420d89ff4146f4fc18cc5ca321f6ad67cfab7f95d4c6d54efcd3510f857db; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:58:02.450Z.