Federal Aviation Administration Learjet Inc 60 accident
Learjet Inc 60 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) while taxiing
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to Idaho Falls, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC18LA049
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Learjet Inc 60
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 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
- N57
- Operator
- Federal Aviation Administration
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo Idaho Falls, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1994)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · to 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilots reported that, while taxiing to the runway for departure, the nose wheel steering seemed unusually sensitive and the airplane pulled slightly to the right. As they neared the runway threshold, they smelled what they thought to be overheated brakes. The crew confirmed the position of the parking brake handle, which had not been fully stowed, and once the handle was completely stowed (parking brake OFF position), the airplane moved more freely. The crew then cancelled their takeoff clearance and taxied the airplane to the runup area to allow the brakes to cool. Shortly thereafter, the control tower notified the flight crew that the airplane was on fire.
Examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the underside of the fuselage and right wing due to fire that originated at the right main landing gear. A detailed examination of the airplane’s brake system revealed no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. A review of the cockpit voice recorder information confirmed that the crew did not completely release the parking brake before taxi.
Probable cause
The flight crew’s failure to fully disengage the parking brake before taxi, which resulted in a brake fire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC18LA049
- Event ID
- 20180626X21713
- Case number
- ANC18LA049
- 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, cause areas. 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: 152c2718f1453d2560a7c9059e8bc6080e915d6910c4053353ad0168b88c5aaa; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:40:29.770Z.