Baron Aviation Services Cessna 208 accident
Cessna 208 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) to Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06LA010
- 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
Cessna 208
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 208
- 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
- N978FE
- Operator
- Baron Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TXTo Perot Field/Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW), Fort Worth, TX
- 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
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Utility pole
- 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
- Fuel system, pump › Fretted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was fueled with 65-gallons of jet-A in preparation for the evening's flight. The 6,600-hour pilot stated that no abnormalities were noted during the engine start, and takeoff. However; shortly after departure, and after the pilot had leveled off at 7,000-feet, he reported to air traffic control that he had an engine failure and a total power loss. During the descent, the pilot attempted both an air and battery engine restart, but was not successful. The inspection on the engine was conducted on November 30, 2005. The accessory gearbox had a reddish-brown stain visible beneath the fuel pump/fuel control unit. The accessory gearbox was turned; rotation of the drive splines in the fuel pump (splines for the fuel control unit) was not observed. The fuel pump unit was then removed, the area between the fuel pump and accessory gearbox was stained with a reddish brown color. The fuel pump drive splines were worn. Additionally, the internal splines on the fuel pump drive coupling were worn. The wear on the spline drive and coupling prevented full engagement of the spline drives. Both pieces had evidence of fretting, with a reddish brown material present. The airplane had approximately 130 hours since a maintenance inspection (which included inspection of the fuel pump). The engine had accumulated approximately a total time of 9,852 hours, with 5,574 hours since overhaul.
Probable cause
The loss of engine power due to the failure of the engine-driven fuel pump. A contributing factor was the inadequate inspection of the engine driven fuel pump.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06LA010
- Event ID
- 20051025X01721
- Case number
- DFW06LA010
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-10-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a46b0ab4752a77e20e8f93439d061545f998627a1f35e6bba506ee1b725cb5e7; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:57:59.374Z.