Spendair Flight 1713
Swearingen SA226TC · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Casper-Natrona County International Airport (CPR) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06IA042
- 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
- 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 SA226TC
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA226
- 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
- N235BA
- Operator
- Spendair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Casper-Natrona County International Airport (CPR), Casper, WYTo Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, CO
- 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
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 set engine power to 60 percent rpm for takeoff, released the brakes, and the airplane steered straight ahead. At approximately 800 feet down the runway, the airplane veered to the right. The pilot said he applied full left steering (tiller) and full left rudder, but the airplane continued to veer right. The pilot said he then used full reverse propeller to arrest the forward motion. The airplane went off the right edge of the runway and stopped approximately 1,300 feet from the start of the takeoff roll. A preliminary examination of the airplane showed the nose wheel was turned beyond the right turn limit mark. The left propeller sustained damage to all 4 blade tips. The weather at the time of the incident was clear skies, 10 miles visibility, temperature 18 degrees Fahrenheit (F), dew point 7 degrees F, and altimeter 29.87 inches. Further examination of the nose wheel steering system failed to show why the airplane initiated the uncontrolled turn. All other systems showed no anomalies.
Probable cause
loss of directional control for undetermined reasons. A factor contributing to the incident was the runway maker light.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06IA042
- Event ID
- 20060227X00237
- Case number
- DEN06IA042
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-02-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 17c2660bf323a56ad2d0a39528f4f42a734bb06bb9fe84555c055096abfc3834; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:55:19.224Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N235BA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.