Executive Jet Aviation Cessna 560 accident
Cessna 560 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to Lakeland Airport Noble F Lee Memorial Field (ARV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06LA058
- 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 560
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 560
- 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
- N391QS
- Operator
- Executive Jet Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), CHICAGO/PROSPEC, ILTo Lakeland Airport Noble F Lee Memorial Field (ARV), Woodruff, 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 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
- Landing
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, encountered
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, on a non-scheduled domestic passenger flight, sustained substantial damage when the right wing contacted runway 36 during landing. The airplane subsequently departed the runway and impacted a snow bank. The operator stated, "The briefed REF [airspeed at the 50-foot point with flaps in the landing position and landing gear extended] speed was 101 knots. Due to weather conditions the Captain flew the approach at 110 knots. The crew encountered light rime icing descending through 4,500 feet until the time they broke out visually at approximately 2,600 feet. The crew utilized the aircraft boots 3 times on the approach to ensure the aircraft was free of contamination. The crew descended on the PAPI [precision approach path indicator] for runway 36 after breaking out visually. At approximately 55 feet the Captain brought the power levers to idle as normal. All seemed normal until approximately 20 to 30 feet when the aircraft felt as if it lost lift and the right wing dropped. The Captain added power and it took both hands to level the wings. The aircraft impacted the runway with the right wingtip hitting first. The aircraft then bounced back in the air and turned slightly to the right. The aircraft then once again settled to the surface off the right side of the runway." The airplane impacted a runway light. The Captain stated that the stick shaker came on and that he added engine power during the landing. The first officer stated that the airplane's airspeed dropped to REF -4 to -5 knots when the airplane was about 20 feet above ground level. The recorded wind was 350 degrees at 14 gusting to 21 knots. A caution in the airplane's operating manual stated, "IN ICING CONDITIONS, A SMALL AMOUNT OF RESIDUAL ICE WILL FORM ON UNPROTECTED AREAS. THIS IS NORMAL, BUT CAN CAUSE AN INCREASE IN STALL SPEEDS. WHEN ANY AMOUNT OF RESIDUAL ICE IS VISIBLE, THE STALL SPEEDS IN FIGURE 4-7 OF THE AIRPLANE FLIGHT MANUAL INCREASE BY 5 KNOTS. THE VREF/VAPP SPEEDS, LANDING DISTANCES AND THE MAXIMUM LANDING WEIGHT PERMITTED BY BRAKE ENERGY MUST BE CORRECTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH FIGURE 4-32 OF THE AIRPLANE FLIGHT MANUAL."
Probable cause
The Captain's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during the landing which resulted in a stall/mush. Factors were the gusty conditions, the snowbank in the safety area next to the runway, and the runway light that the airplane struck.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06LA058
- Event ID
- 20060109X00035
- Case number
- CHI06LA058
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 4173a6be079e61420157d72b4e86cea481d888c9c0a7f1bd291ae05b0a798adb; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:56:15.231Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N391QS; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.