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CHI04LA298 · Cessna 208B

29 Sept 2004 · Decatur, IL, United States

Cessna 208B · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff

From Decatur Airport (DEC) to Quincy Regional Airport Baldwin Field (UIN)

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Event

NTSB case
CHI04LA298
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 208B

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
N276PM
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Decatur Airport (DEC), Decatur, ILTo Quincy Regional Airport Baldwin Field (UIN), Quincy, IL
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
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
On ground/water collision with terrain/water
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 › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
  • Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected

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 was being operated as an on-demand commercial cargo flight when it impacted runway barricades and a rut during takeoff from a closed runway. The pilot attempted to perform a night takeoff on a runway which had its lights disabled and was barricaded. When the pilot saw the barricades, he attempted to go around them. The runway was listed as closed in the Notices to Airman, and recorded as such on the airport's automated surface observing system.

Probable cause

The pilot's inadequate preflight preparation, and his subsequent selection of a runway for takeoff that was listed as out of service, resulting in a collision with barricades and uneven terrain during takeoff.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record CHI04LA298
Event ID
20060901X01278
Case number
CHI04LA298
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: 15f2b9d3d98e2fbe5b5e832eb6b6c813d6e2f8293009dff3f4294f34aa2fdf6f; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:15:45.787Z.