DEN08LA057 · Beech A45
Goldwing Aviation Beech A45 · Accident: electrical system malfunction/failure during initial climb
From Centennial Airport (APA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08LA057
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Beech A45
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 45
- 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
- N34KF
- Operator
- Goldwing Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Centennial Airport (APA), Englewood, COTo not recorded
- 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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
- Electrical system malfunction/failure
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 stated that the airplane the battery was dead, and he used an external source to "charge/start the airplane." The taxi and initial takeoff were uneventful. During the landing gear retraction after takeoff, the airplane "lost total electrical power." The pilot elected to continue the flight and troubleshoot the electrical failure. With no electrical power, the pilot had no communications, and had to manually extend the landing gear. A second airplane flew near the accident airplane to help verify that the landing gear was extended. The landing gear appeared to be extended, and the pilot attempted to land the airplane. During the landing roll, the right main landing gear collapsed and the airplane went off the runway. The right wing impacted a runway sign, and the nose landing gear and left main landing gear collapsed. The airplane came to rest upright approximately 10 feet off the runway. An examination of the airplane showed that the aircraft battery was completely discharged. The owner of the airplane reported that the alternator would not be able to handle the electrical load during landing gear retraction without battery power.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to fly the airplane with a discharged battery, which resulted in a total electrical failure during takeoff climb. Contributing factors were the pilot's inability to verify the landing gear position, and the impact with the runway sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08LA057
- Event ID
- 20080220X00221
- Case number
- DEN08LA057
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 273750dedd646deb8fcc020cda1850a7ef3f1fc232c15e58a14454eab53904df; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:22:55.728Z.