Gulf and Caribbean Cargo Convair Div. of Gen. Dynamics 440 incident
Convair Div. of Gen. Dynamics 440 · Incident: cargo shift during takeoff
From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW) to General Mitchell International Airport (MKE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05IA273
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Convair Div. of Gen. Dynamics 440
- Aircraft type
- Convair Div Of Gen Dynamics 440
- 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
- N181FL
- Operator
- Gulf and Caribbean Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW), Kenosha, WITo General Mitchell International Airport (MKE), Milwaukee, WI
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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
- Cargo shift
- 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
- Flightcrew › Security of cargo, not verified
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 sustained minor damage during takeoff when the cargo shifted and the airplane settled on its tail. The takeoff was aborted and the airplane remained on the runway. The Captain reported that the flight had arrived at the airport at 2350. The flight crew un-strapped the freight, but left the cargo door closed due to thunderstorms in the area. The Captain reported that they waited for 1.5 hours for the ground crew to arrive to off-load the cargo. When the ground crew failed to arrive, the Captain contacted the company. The company requested the flight crew to reposition the airplane to another airport and have the cargo off-loaded there. The flight crew prepared for the flight by checking the weather and completing the required paperwork. The Captain reported, "Since we un-strapped the freight for off load almost 2 hours ago, we didn't think to check the freight." The Captain reported that they initiated its takeoff roll, but after about 400 feet, the cargo shifted and the airplane's tail struck the runway.
Probable cause
The flight crew failed to verify that the cargo was secured before takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05IA273
- Event ID
- 20050927X01539
- Case number
- CHI05IA273
- 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: 6e468c2d8464eb546ec28bdb46d0474f87de64c6dd97931d475f0386e7e64e92; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:58:40.497Z.