Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / BFO89FA059

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event BFO89FA059

1989-07-19 GLEN BURNIE, Maryland, United States Airport · BWI Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

A FIRE THAT ERUPTED IN THE COCKPIT OF THE AIRCRAFT (UNDER A SIDE PANEL). RELATED FACTORS WERE: SMOKE AND FUMES IN THE COCKPIT WHICH REDUCED THE PILOT'S VISUAL PERCEPTION AND ABILITY TO SEE.

Factual narrative

SHORTLY AFTER DEPARTING FROM RUNWAY 15L AT THE BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON INTL ARPT, THE PLT TRANSMITTED THAT HE HAD AN EMERGENCY CONSISTING OF A FIRE UNDER HIS SIDE PANEL. HE RPRTD HE WAS GOING TO CIRCLE & LAND. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, FLAMES & SMOKE WERE IN THE COCKPIT AREA. THE ACFT STARTED A GRADUAL DESCENT DURING A LEFT TURN. SUBSEQUENTLY, IT CRASHED INTO A HOUSE. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE DID NOT REVEAL THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE; HOWEVER, A CB RADIO WAS FOUND WITH EVIDENCE THAT IT MAY HAVE BEEN WIRED TO THE ACFT ELECTRICAL SYSTEM. THE OWNERS STATED THAT THE CB WAS NOT INSTALLEDIN THE ACFT PRIOR TO THE PLT'S USE OF THE PLANE ON THAT FLT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1989_BFO89FA059.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗