ATL06FA045 · Swearingen SA-226-TC
Swearingen SA-226-TC · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From James M. Cox Dayton International Airport (KDAY) to Valley International Airport (KHRL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06FA045
- 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
- 1 · 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
Swearingen SA-226-TC
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-226
- 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
- N629EK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From James M. Cox Dayton International Airport (KDAY), Dayton, OHTo Valley International Airport (KHRL), Harlingen, 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 · descent
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight at 16,000 feet, the pilot requested from ATC and was cleared to make a 360-degree turn to the left. Shortly after this, the pilot requested a 360-degree turn to the right. The pilot then requested radar vectors to the closest airport and was given this. ATC asked the pilot if he had an emergency and the pilot reported he had an asymmetric fuel condition. The pilot then asked for a lower altitude and was cleared by ATC to 4,000 feet. About a minute later the pilot transmitted "Mayday" six times and shortly after this radar and radio contact with the flight was lost. Recorded radar data showed that at 1803:13 the accident airplane was proceeding on a southerly heading at 16,100 feet mean sea level (MSL). At 1803:53 the airplane turned left to a southeasterly heading. At 1804:13 the airplane turned right returning to its original southerly heading. At 1805:14 the accident airplane turned to the right on a southwesterly heading, and maintained that heading until 1809:04 at which time the airplane turned due west and was at an altitude of 15,400 feet. The last radar contact was at 1810:06 at an altitude of 13,800 feet. The airplane wreckage was located due north from this last recorded radar contact. Witnesses observed the airplane descend in a near vertical attitude, collide with the ground, and then explode. Components from all areas of the aircraft structure and flight control surfaces were located at the crash site along with components from both engines and propellers. Impact and post crash fire damage precluded the examination of the airplanes fuel system and components.
Probable cause
The pilot's inflight loss of control following a reported fuel asymmetry condition for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06FA045
- Event ID
- 20060213X00194
- Case number
- ATL06FA045
- 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: ece6b12540e3c4f7089c602c4cec122cbe4ce98d10765e3698fc351c0ef3949f; retrieved 2026-09-18T12:57:31.057Z.