Bemidji Aviation Services Beech 58 accident
Beech 58 · Accident: hard landing
From Bemidji Regional Airport (BJI) to Anoka County-Blaine (Janes Field) Airport (ANE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA120
- 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
Beech 58
- 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
- N70DD
- Operator
- Bemidji Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bemidji Regional Airport (BJI), Bemidji, MNTo Anoka County-Blaine (Janes Field) Airport (ANE), Anoka, MN
- 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
- 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 structures
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot diverted to a nearby airport after he encountered unforecasted freezing rain. He made two low passes over the airport while trying to clear ice off of the windshield; however, the windshield alcohol de-ice could not keep up with the ice accumulation. The pilot stated that he had to look out of the side window during the landing and once he descended below the tree line, he was unable to accurately judge his height over the runway. He stated that this was compounded by the light color of the new concrete runway which had snow blowing across it. A hard landing resulted after which the pilot taxied the airplane to the ramp. The right wing sustained substantial damage during the landing. The pilot stated that the de-ice systems on the airplane were working, but they could not keep up with the rate of ice accumulation
Probable cause
The pilot's improper flare which resulted in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident was the unforcasted freezing rain that obscured the windscreen and hindered the pilot's ability to judge the height of the airplane above the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA120
- Event ID
- 20090106X53332
- Case number
- CEN09CA120
- 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: 7eb3447900443ad79944724568ef89f0d88bee16ff14372ffc7968c95558ee2a; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:40:23.785Z.