Beechcraft 55 N8629M

Summary

On 24 August 2020 at about 15:16 local time, a Beechcraft 55 registered N8629M was involved in an accident near Nashville, Tennessee, United States. 2 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

24 August 2020 at 15:16

Classification

Accident

Location

Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Nearest airport

Nashville Intl (BNA)

Coordinates

36.1244, -86.6781

Aircraft

Beechcraft 55

Registration

N8629M

Category

Airplane

Year built

1963

Engines

2

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Instructional

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Gallatin → Nashville

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

ERA20CA296

Nobody was injured.

The pilot's inadvertent feathering of the propellers during the landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing. A factor in the accident was the instructor's failure to fully monitor the pilot's manipulation of the levers in the airplane's non-standard throttle quadrant.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The commercial pilot was on her second flight of multi-engine flight instruction as she completed an approach and flared the airplane for landing. The instructor said his attention was "outside" as he monitored the airplane's height, drift, runway alignment, and guarded the throttles. The airplane suddenly landed hard, bounced back into the air, and did not respond as expected to the instructor's remedial actions. The engines responded to an increase in throttle for a go-around, but there was no corresponding increase in thrust. The airplane drifted to its left, and the instructor chose to close the throttles, and perform a controlled landing. The airplane departed the runway surface and came to rest in the grass infield with substantial damage to the fuselage forward of the cockpit. According to the instructor, there were no deficiencies in the performance and handling of the airplane. The student pilot had experienced a negative habit transfer from her experience in the airplane she was accustomed to flying as the configuration of its throttle quadrant differed from the accident airplane and she had inadvertently reduced (feathered) the propellers rather than reducing the throttles while landing.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.