About 0807 mountain standard time, February 27, 1979, Rocky Mountain Airways, Inc., Flight 801, crashed into rolling terrain shortly after takeoff in visual flight conditions from runway 34 at Cheyenne Municipal Airport, Wyoming. The aircraft came to rest about 1.3 nmi east of the departure end of the runway. There were 14 passengers and a crew of 2 aboard; 2 passengers were injured slightly. The aircraft was damaged substantially. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the accident was the flightcrew's erroneous determination that the aircraft was not capable of single-engine flight and their actions which precluded obtaining maximum available performance from the aircraft. The cause of the engine failure was an erroneous assessment by company maintenance personnel of damage sustained by the right engine during an overtemperature condition and their poor judgment in deciding to repair and release the engine for flight without replacing the engine's power turbine section.
Aircraft Accident Report - Rocky Mountain Airways, Inc., DeHavilland DHC-6-300, N24RM, Cheyenne, Wyoming, February 27, 1979
1979
32 pages
Report
No indication
English
Transportation Safety , Air Transportation , Aeronautics , Aviation accidents , Takeoff , Visual navigation , Runways , Aircraft engines , Failure , Maintenance , Turbomachinery , Short takeoff planes , Transport planes , Wyoming , Cheyenne Municipal Airport , Cheyenne(Wyoming) , Twin Otter aircraft