NYC08CA122 · Beech B-55
Beech B-55 · Accident: hard landing
From Diamondhead Airport (66Y) to Brookhaven-Lincoln County Airport (1R7)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08CA122
- 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 B-55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft B-55
- 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
- N4265S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Diamondhead Airport (66Y), Diamondhead, MSTo Brookhaven-Lincoln County Airport (1R7), Brookhaven, MS
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 oper/perf/capability
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 of the Beech 55 reported that he encountered light wind gusts during an approach to runway 22. He completed his pre-landing checklist, deployed full flaps, extended the landing gear, and noted that all three landing gear indicator lights were green. Just prior to touchdown the airplane encountered a wind gust that caused it to bank 60 degrees. The pilot leveled the airplane just prior to landing on all three wheels, but the airplane did not "stick." He applied full power and aborted the landing. During the second approach, the pilot deployed half flaps and extended the landing gear. He noted that the gusts had subsided and that the approach was more stable. Prior to landing, he confirmed that all three landing gear indicator lights were green. The pilot landed the airplane, but as the nose wheel contacted the runway, the front of the airplane began to shake violently, and the nose gear collapsed. A witness observed both landings, and stated that on the first attempt the airplane landed "hard." The airplane sustained substantial damage including wrinkles in the fuselage skin aft of the main cabin door. The reported wind, at an airport about 25 miles south of the accident site, about the time of the accident, was from 190 degrees at 10 knots, gusting to 17 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper flare, which resulted in a hard landing during the first attempt, and subsequent collapse of the nose landing gear during the second landing attempt. Contributing to the accident was the wind gusts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08CA122
- Event ID
- 20080414X00468
- Case number
- NYC08CA122
- 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: 55a1ef60fade9c24a194e29a7943cb0ca864debf7874bc8063d522a41b14c847; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:31:47.714Z.