NYC04IA037 · Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50
Tag Aviation Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50 · Incident: fire during initial climb
From Bradley International Airport (BDL) to Westchester County Airport (HPN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC04IA037
- 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
Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50
- Aircraft type
- Dassault Breguet FALCON 50
- 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
- N14CG
- Operator
- Tag Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bradley International Airport (BDL), Windsor Locks, CTTo Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, NY
- 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
- Fire
- 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
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Arcing
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff, at 500-600 feet AGL, the flight crew noticed smoke in the cabin, declared an emergency, and returned to land without incident. After landing, crash fire rescue extinguished a fire in the overhead paneling of a coat closet, which was located directly behind the cockpit. Examination of the airplane revealed extensive heat damage to the overhead paneling around a closet light fixture in the aircraft cabin. Visual examination of the damaged area revealed that electrical wiring and an oxygen line were installed in close proximity to each other in the area of the light fixture. Additionally, examination of the oxygen line revealed a pin-size hole through the circumference of the line with signatures consistent of electrical arcing. Further examination of the light fixture revealed areas of severe localized heating and melting. Examination of maintenance records revealed two entries in the past 12 months, which described the closet light circuit breaker popping during illumination of the light. This occurred as a result of an electrical arcing between the light assembly and an oxygen line. Both instances included installing Teflon tape to protect interference between the assembly and the oxygen line.
Probable cause
An in-flight fire, originating from electrical arcing, which subsequently created a hole in an oxygen line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC04IA037
- Event ID
- 20031205X01998
- Case number
- NYC04IA037
- 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: 4004a558198659d7a9b6bdf4ad34eff0cc02d5f0ab79b65f0b94add4b5daa72e; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:09:46.137Z.