ATL04LA157 · Beech A45
Beech A45 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Warren County Memorial Airport (KRNC) to New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (KEVB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04LA157
- 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
- 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 A45
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 45
- 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
- N134BH
- Operator
- Joe Lane Howard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren County Memorial Airport (KRNC), McMinnville, TNTo New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (KEVB), New Smyrna Bch, 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Engine assembly, crankcase › Undertorqued
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, top overhaul, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that, while in cruise flight at 7,500 feet, the engine vibrated severely, and the propeller separated. The airplane collided with trees during emergency landing, and the propeller was not located. Examination of the engine revealed the crankshaft was fractured forward of the alternator drive gear. Examination of the fracture surface at the crankshaft separation revealed features consistent with fatigue fracture under torsional loading. Blue tinting was visible near the middle of the No. 4 main journal. Several ladder cracks were observed on the No. 4 main journal surface adjacent to the blue-tinted region. A large crack in the No. 4 main journal surface continued forward through the alternator drive gear and to the exposed fatigue fracture at the crankshaft separation. Scanning Electron Microscope examination of the crack revealed crack arrest lines and marks emanated from an area at the journal surface; the fracture surface within the origin area displayed an appearance consistent with an overstress fracture. Hardness testing of the material revealed no evidence of anomaly. According to the maintenance logs, the Continental IO-520-B2 engine received a field major overhaul on October 10, 1974. The engine received a top overhaul on July 1, 2002, at an hour meter reading of 1000.0. The hour meter reading on the airplane at the accident site was 1053.7. According to Teledyne Continental Service Information Letter SIL98-9A, the recommended time between overhaul (TBO) periods for the IO-520-B series engine is 1700 operating hours or 12 years, whichever occurs first.
Probable cause
The maintenance personnel under-torquing of the crankcase throughbolts during top overhaul, which resulted in crankcase fretting, and the subsequent fatigue failure of the crankshaft at the No. 4 main journal. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA157
- Event ID
- 20040719X01005
- Case number
- ATL04LA157
- 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: bde7c7353e28dd89e20dc87ea14929f7bc64af6a3c5c60732407d2ab81701a41; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:11:42.535Z.