CEN17LA136 · Cessna 550 CITATION I
D C Aviation Cessna 550 CITATION I · Accident: birdstrike en route
From Mustang Beach Airport (RAS) to Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA136
- 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 CITATION I
- 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
- N75WL
- Operator
- D C Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mustang Beach Airport (RAS), Port Aransas, TXTo Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW), Fort Worth, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1980)
- 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 · climb to 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- 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
The turbofan-powered airplane struck birds after takeoff, resulting in a total loss of power on the right engine. The commercial pilot diverted to another airport, where he landed the airplane uneventfully. Examination of the airplane revealed several locations with bird remains, including within the right engine's fan duct. Examination of the right engine showed that the fan and booster stages were missing from the engine; they were found as a unit near the departure airport. Examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the fuselage and right wing from the fan and booster stages.
DNA analysis of the bird remains indicated that they were from redhead ducks, which can weigh between 1.38 and 3.31 lbs each. Damage on two fan blades that were approximately opposite each other indicated that at least two birds struck the fan. Examination of the engine components revealed that all damage was consistent with overload failures resulting from the bird strikes. The engine was certified to withstand the impact of a single 4-lb bird; thus, the ingestion of multiple ducks likely exceeded the engine certification requirements. However, the subsequent engine failure was contained because the fan case and inlet were not penetrated, as designed.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with multiple birds, which resulted in separation of the right engine's fan rotor and subsequent total loss of power of the right engine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA136
- Event ID
- 20170322X15909
- Case number
- CEN17LA136
- 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: 25b3223377727791f6ca0bfcc5bcd88fb2dcd85af044c099053b4d5ede3c6aa6; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:06:40.339Z.