ERA10FA115 · Beech B-60
Beech B-60 · Accident: loss of engine power (total) en route
From Huntsville International Airport (HSV) to Nashville International Airport (BNA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10FA115
- 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
- 2 · 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-60
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft B-60
- 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
- N810JA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Huntsville, ALTo Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TN
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Loss of engine power (total)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The multiengine airplane was at an altitude of 6,000 feet when it experienced a catastrophic right engine failure, approximately 15 minutes after takeoff. The pilot elected to return to his departure airport, which was 30 miles away, instead of diverting to a suitable airport that was located about 10 miles away. The pilot reported that he was not able to maintain altitude and the airplane descended until it struck trees and impacted the ground, approximately 3 miles from the departure airport. The majority of the wreckage was consumed by fire. A 5 1/2 by 6-inch hole was observed in the top right portion of the crankcase. Examination of the right engine revealed that the No. 2 cylinder separated from the crankcase in flight. Two No. 2 cylinder studs were found to have fatigue fractures consistent with insufficient preload on their respective bolts. In addition, a fatigue fracture was observed on a portion of the right side of the crankcase, mostly perpendicular to the threaded bore of the cylinder stud. The rear top 3/8-inch and the front top 1/2-inch cylinder hold-down studs for the No. 2 cylinder exceeded the manufacturer's specified length from the case deck by .085 and .111 inches, respectively. The airplane had been operated for about 50 hours since its most recent annual inspection, which was performed about 8 months prior the accident. The right engine had been operated for about 1,425 hours since it was overhauled, and about 455 hours since the No. 2 cylinder was removed for the replacement of six cylinder studs. It was not clear why the pilot was unable to maintain altitude after the right engine failure; however, the airplane was easily capable of reaching an alternate airport had the pilot elected not to return to his departure airport.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to divert to the nearest suitable airport following a total loss of power in the right engine during cruise flight. Contributing to the accident was the total loss of power in the right engine due to separation of its No. 2 cylinder as a result of fatigue cracks.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10FA115
- Event ID
- 20100118X64048
- Case number
- ERA10FA115
- 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. 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: 484498434a8787fd1349f690cede4bdca38ebd8816a274cbf148e77ec99a828a; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:37:23.256Z.