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Atlas / NTSB / CEN11TA027

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN11TA027

2010-10-18 Palestine, Texas, United States Airport · PSN None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N1TR

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BEECHCRAFT CORP B300

Year of manufacture

2013

Engine

P&W CANADA PT6A-60A (1050 hp)

Seats / Engines

19 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

20130909

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A001BB

Registrant of record

TRINITY RIVER AUTHORITY OF TEXAS

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

An in-flight collision with a flock of birds while the airplane was descending through a cloud layer.

Factual narrative

On October 18, 2010, at 1253 central daylight time, N1TR, a Beech A100 multiengine airplane, received substantial damage after impacting several birds near Palestine, Texas. The pilot, co-pilot, and three passengers were not injured. The airplane was owned and operated by Trinity River Authority of Texas, Arlington, Texas. The flight was descending through a cloud layer and was in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) at the time of the accident. An instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan had been filed for the public use flight. The airplane had departed the Arlington Municipal Airport (GKY), Arlington, Texas, at 1225, and was en route for the Palestine Municipal Airport (PSN), Palestine, Texas. The pilot reported that the airplane was descending through 4,000 feet in IMC, when the airplane struck multiple birds. The airplane shuttered; however, the pilot reported that the airplane was controllable and that the airplane handling was not adversely affected. The flight crew elected to return to GKY and landed without further incident. Examination of the airplane revealed substantial damage to the left wing leading edge and spar outboard of the stall fence. The leading edge of the vertical stabilizer sustained minor damage. Bird remains and feathers were observed near the damaged area of the left wing and the vertical fin of the tail section. The airplane collided with several birds as it descended though a cloud layer. The flight crew reported that there were no observed flight control issues; however, they elected to return to the departure airport and landed without incident. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed bird remains along the substantially damaged left wing. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Environmental issues-Physical environment-Object/animal/substance-Animal(s)/bird(s)-Effect on operation - C
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Ceiling/visibility/precip-Low visibility-Contributed to outcome

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2010_CEN11TA027.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, imc). 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 ↗