CEN13FA509 · Cessna 421C
RSB Aviation Cessna 421C · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Edgar County Airport (PRG) to Terre Haute Regional Airport, Hulman Field (HUF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA509
- 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
- 1 · 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 421C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 421
- 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
- N229H
- Operator
- RSB Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Edgar County Airport (PRG), Paris, ILTo Terre Haute Regional Airport, Hulman Field (HUF), Terre Haute, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Company personnel reported that, in the weeks before the accident, the airplane's left engine had been experiencing a problem that prevented it from initially producing 100 percent power. The accident pilot and maintenance personnel attempted to correct the discrepancy; however, the discrepancy was not corrected before the accident flight, and company personnel had previously flown flights in the airplane with the known discrepancy.
Witnesses reported observing a portion of the takeoff roll, which they described as slower than normal. However, the airplane was subsequently blocked from their view. Examination of the runway environment showed that, during the takeoff roll, the airplane traveled the entire length of the 4,501-ft runway, continued to travel through a 300-ft-long grassy area and a 300-ft-long soybean field, and then impacted the top of 10-ft-tall corn stalks for about 50 ft before it began to climb. About 1/2 mile from the airport, the airplane impacted several trees in a left-wing, nose-low attitude, consistent with the airplane being operated below the minimum controllable airspeed. The main wreckage was consumed by postimpact fire.
Postaccident examinations revealed no evidence of mechanical anomalies with the airframe, right engine, or propellers that would have precluded normal operation. Given the left engine's preexisting condition, it is likely that its performance was degraded; however, postimpact damage and fire preluded a determination of the cause of the problem.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to abort the takeoff during the ground roll after detecting the airplane's degraded performance. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to attempt a flight with a known problem with the left engine and the likely partial loss of left engine power for reasons that could not be determined during the postaccident examination of the engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA509
- Event ID
- 20130827X51843
- Case number
- CEN13FA509
- 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: 42208c86ce38fca74b15c2da41eb78f0ab5c3e410b1533c608074060e8c81dee; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:02:59.188Z.