ERA13LA061 · Cessna 550
Stevens Aviation Cessna 550 · Accident: wildlife encounter (non-bird) during landing
From Donaldson Field Airport (GYH) to Donaldson Field Airport (GYH)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination and damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA061
- 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
Cessna 550
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 550
- 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
- N6763L
- Operator
- Stevens Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Donaldson Field Airport (GYH), Greenville, SCTo Donaldson Field Airport (GYH), Greenville, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 1991)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Wildlife encounter (non-bird)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 5 seconds into the landing rollout, a deer appeared from the wood line and ran into the path of the airplane. The deer struck the airplane at the leading edge of the left wing above the left main landing gear, and ruptured an adjacent fuel cell. The pilot was able to maintain directional control, and the airplane was stopped on the runway, spilling fuel and on fire. The crew performed an emergency shutdown of the airplane and egressed without injury. The airplane was consumed by the postcrash fire.
Probable cause
Collision with a deer during the landing roll, which resulted in a compromised fuel tank and a postimpact fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA061
- Event ID
- 20121117X40351
- Case number
- ERA13LA061
- 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: 7fd280753eec61a826ea554111a0f49608529a222f0464de76ef48efe1f669fc; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:26:56.189Z.