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Atlas / NTSB / DEN85LA071

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DEN85LA071

1985-01-27 GRAND FORKS, North Dakota, United States Airport · GFK Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

ON SUNDAY 1/27/85 AT APPROXIMATELY 0849 MST, A BEECH DUCHESSN1850S, ON LEASE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA CRASHED AFTER TAKEOFF FROM THE GRAND FORKS AIRPORT, GRAND FORKS, ND.THE STUDENT PILOT AND CERTIFIED FLIGHT INSTRUCTORE WERE NOT INJURED. TWO PASSENGERS IN THE BACK SEATS RECEIVED SERIOUS INJURIES. THERE WAS NO FLIGHT PLAN FILED AND VMC PREVAILED. THE PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THIS FLIGHT WAS A TRAINING FLIGHT IN A MULTI-ENGINE AIRCRAFT. THE STUDENT PILOT INITIATED THE FLIGHT ON RUNWAY 34R. AT AN ALTITUDE OF APPROXIMATELY 150 FT. ABOVE GROUND LEVEL (AGL) THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR SIMULATED AN ENGINE FAILURE RETARDING THE LEFT THROTTLE. THE STUDENT PILOT WAS SLOW TO REACT TO THE FAILURE AND THE AIRSPEED DROPPED BELOW VMC. THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR TOOK CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT AND ATTEMPTED TO REGAIN FLYING SPEED BY INCREASING BOTH ENGINES TO FUEL POWER. THE INSTRUCTOR WAS UNABLE TO REGAIN AIRSPEED BEFORE GROUND IMPACT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1985_DEN85LA071.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 (engine failure). 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 ↗