SEA06FA054 · Beech 58P
Beech 58P · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Bellingham International Airport (BLI) to Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06FA054
- 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 58P
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N469MD
- Operator
- Wallace FW Chang
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bellingham International Airport (BLI), Bellingham, WATo Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UT
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Approximately 11 minutes after takeoff on a night instrument flight rules flight plan, the pilot of the twin-engine airplane radioed air traffic control (ATC) that he was climbing out of 7,800 feet. Shortly thereafter, ATC received a "mayday" transmission followed by "lost an engine." Subsequently, radio communications and radar contact with the airplane were lost. Witnesses reported they observed the airplane in an unusually steep descent prior to impacting terrain. One witness stated he heard a high-pitched noise emanating from the airplane as it descended toward the ground. The wreckage was located in an open field adjacent to a highway. The main wreckage was located in the confines of a large impact crater approximately 15 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep. Dark night conditions with low ceilings prevailed at the time of the accident. Post-accident teardown and examination of both engines revealed no evidence of excessive wear or operational failure of internal engine components. Extensive damage, however, was noted to the right turbocharger assembly. Disassembly of the component revealed damage to the compressor wheel and compressor housing shroud. Circumferential scuffing and pockmarks were noted to the inner compressor housing, and impact type damage and smearing were noted to the individual compressor blades. Scuffing type damage was noted to the turbine wheel and corresponding turbine housing. Additional damage was noted to the turbine/compressor input shaft, and associated journals and bearings. Foreign material was found in the compressor housing and turbocharger after cooler. The material consisted of aluminum fragments, a rivet head, a piece of brass, paint chips, rubber, gasket material and dirt. The manufacturer of the turbo assembly examined the unit and reported the damage was consistent with FOD (foreign object damage) and lubricant starvation. The exact sequence of events leading to the failure of the turbocharger was not determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the climb to cruise. Contributing factors included a loss of engine power to the right engine folowing a turbocharger failure, instrument meteorological and dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06FA054
- Event ID
- 20060301X00257
- Case number
- SEA06FA054
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2006-02-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9740762f70287d066d606fb92caef428ff062a185d7b02c47de344997c011c9b; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:31:36.025Z.