1980 Convair CV-240 accident near Daytona Beach
Alaska West Convair 240 · The 1980 Convair CV-240 accident near Daytona Beach occurred on 24 May 1980
From Daytona Beach Spruce Creek Airport, Florida, United States to Las Américas International Airport (SDQ)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
Convair 240
- Aircraft type
- Convair 240
- 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
- N300GR
- Operator
- Alaska West
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daytona Beach Spruce Creek Airport, Florida, United StatesTo Las Américas International Airport (SDQ)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 (private owner)
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 or explosion on ground
- 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
- Pilot in command › Attempted operation w/known deficiencies in equipment
- Pilot in command › Failed to abort takeoff
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Daytona Beach, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1980 Convair CV-240 accident near Daytona Beach occurred on 24 May 1980. On that day, an engine fire occurred immediately after takeoff on a privately registered Convair CV-240 that was to operate a ferry flight from Daytona Beach to Santo Domingo. The aircraft then went out of control and crashed to the ground, and all three occupants died.
Accident sequence
During the takeoff roll from Daytona Beach-Spruce Creek Airport, the right engine caught fire and exploded. Instead of aborting the takeoff, the pilots continued the takeoff roll. During the initial climb the captain first flew a left turn, then a steep right turn. The next moment he then decided to attempt an emergency landing. The aircraft descended, struck a field and caught fire. The Convair was completely destroyed, and all three occupants were killed.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) carried out the accident investigation. The investigators found that the aircraft's maximum takeoff weight had been exceeded by 7,353 pounds at takeoff. With a permissible takeoff mass of 19 tonnes, the Convair was therefore overloaded by 3,335 kg. The pilots had been aware of this, as well as of the fact that the aircraft's oil lines had not been replaced or overhauled for at least 15 years. As further causes of the accident, the NTSB cited poor preparation of the flight, improper loading of the aircraft, the engine fire and the landing away from an airfield, as well as the fact that the captain had failed to abort the takeoff.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Convair CV-240 bei Daytona Beach 1980” (revision 257848962, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB remarks
CREW AWARE THAT OIL LINES WERE 15YRS OLD.ACFT APPROX 7353LBS OVR G/W FOR TKOF CONDITIONS.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall einer Convair CV-240 bei Daytona Beach 1980
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 257848962 · 2025-07-13 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q135283738
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19800524P081681
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall einer Convair CV-240 bei Daytona Beach 1980" (page 13459452, revision 257848962), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case NTSB19800524P081681 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681: operated under Part 91: General aviation (private owner)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19800524P081681: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "1980 Convair CV-240 accident near Daytona Beach" and NTSB case NTSB19800524P081681, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.