ERA16LA004 · Beech 58
RCL Farms Leasing Beech 58 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while taxiing
From Dawson Municipal Airport (16J) to Southwest Georgia Regional Airport (ABY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA004
- 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 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
- N25734
- Operator
- RCL Farms Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dawson Municipal Airport (16J), Dawson, GATo Southwest Georgia Regional Airport (ABY), Albany, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1973)
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While taxiing from the runway after landing, the commercial pilot noted "softness" when he applied the left brake. Upon entering the ramp area, he further applied the brakes and attempted to slow the airplane; however, the brakes had no effect. The airplane rolled off the ramp, into the grass, and impacted an airport perimeter fence.
Examination of both left and right main landing gear brake torque plates revealed that they had fractured in fatigue, and that the fatigue cracks emanated from corrosion pitting within the attachment bolt holes. The corrosion pits in the attachment bolt holes were stress risers that likely reduced the strength of the plates. It is likely that, during the most recent maintenance inspection, about 7 months before the accident, the mechanic failed to thoroughly inspect the brake system as required, which would have detected the corrosion and fatigue cracks prior to their ultimate failure.
Probable cause
The mechanic's inadequate inspection of the brake system during the most recent annual inspection, which resulted in the failure of both left and right main landing gear torque plates and a subsequent loss of braking action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA004
- Event ID
- 20151007X54552
- Case number
- ERA16LA004
- 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: fd0faccc7b98556fa6ee39a8d1f54479f0cd9331d7dc8398911ae0941ff9dc1f; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:52:12.775Z.