Execstar Aviation Beech BE90 accident
Beech BE90 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Cancún International Airport (MMUN) to Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (KFLL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA062
- 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
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 BE90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 90
- 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
- N11FL
- Operator
- Execstar Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cancún International Airport (MMUN), CancunTo Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (KFLL), Fort Lauderdale, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated, during the approach to the airport he selected the landing gear to the down position. He observed two green lights and the light for the left landing gear was off on the landing gear indication. He informed the tower of the situation and cycled the gear with no change to the indication. He advised the tower he would like to perform a fly-by to have a visual check of the landing gear. The tower approved the low approach. The pilot cycled the landing gear one more time and got three green lights on the landing gear indication. The tower informed the pilot the gear appeared to be down and in place. The pilot requested and received clearance to land on runway 13. The accident airplane landed and rolled approximately 2,000 feet on the runway before the left main landing gear collapsed. The FAA inspector who responded to the accident site stated, the left main gear assembly was found retracted and up into the engine nacelle. The lock down assembly was unlocked and undamaged. The left main landing gear torque link was broken and the left landing gear actuator gearbox assembly was detached from its mount box. The investigating FAA inspector stated, at the time of the accident the accident airplane had accumulated about 148 hours since its last maintenance inspections, on January 3, 2004. That inspection included checking the actuator support brackets for visible damage, wear, cracks, loose or missing rivets. An examination of the fractured left gear actuator support box structure brackets revealed a crack that circumscribes the lower hi-shear rivet holes of the outboard bracket. The operator of the accident airplane stated, during damage assessment, a structural failure of the left main landing gear actuator support box structure was discovered. They suspected the structure had at least one existing crack which allowed the actuator to "float" within the support structure not allowing complete spring compression from the actuator to engage the left main landing gear drag leg hooks.
Probable cause
The inadequate inspection of the landing gear system by company maintenance personnel resulting in a crack in the left main landing actuator mount going undetected and collapse of the left landing gear during landing roll when the actuator attachment failed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA062
- Event ID
- 20040329X00380
- Case number
- MIA04LA062
- 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. 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: ef89a3a6e38c9996370bae38f98aaedd4fe72c202a8676746f492c3ce1ff1977; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:28:43.721Z.