8th of January 2010

A Dassault Falcon 20C was being readied by its crew for an FAA Part 91 Business flight from Vail-Eagle County Airport, Colorado, USA to Chihuahua-Gen Fierro Villalobos Airport, Mexico. While the captain takes care of the internal checks the co-pilot takes care of the external checks.

After the 5 passengers are on board, the door is closed and the engines are started. The weather was good with low temperatures (-13ºC) but with clear skies and good visibility, the runway was dry.

What then occurred differs per witness who observed the aircraft taxi from the ramp. One witness stated that during the pre-flight, the co-pilot was observed to remove the tire chocks from the nose gear, but not the chock on the left main landing gear. Another witness did not say anything about the main wheel chock

Both witnesses stated that the engines were spooled up to a high thrust setting for the aircraft to 'jump the chock', either the nose wheel chock or the chock left on the left main landing gear. After rolling over the chock (whichever chock it was) the engines were throttled back and the aircraft taxied to the 6548 feet long runway 25 for take-off.

After the aircraft received its take-off clearance the engines are spooled up and the take-off is initiated. During the take-off roll, the lefthand main gear tire "blew', according to the captain at a speed of .120 knots. Which made the captain abort the take-off.

However, the remaining runway length was insufficient to stop the aircraft and the aircraft went off the end of the runway, finally coming to a stop 400 feet (120 meters) past the runway end. The area past the runway was covered in deep snow and as the aircraft left the runway and entered the deep snow past the runway end, causing both the main gears to collapse and the righthand wing to buckle. After shutting down the aircraft crew and passengers evacuate the aircraft, all without injuries. An FAA inspector inspected the aircraft and found no anomalies with the aircraft, other than that caused by the runway overrun. Both main gear tires were found deflated, with the left-hand main gear tire fragmented with parts of the tire spread across the runway. It was also noticed that the remains of the left main gear tire showed signs of a crease of shallow cut across the thread, which could have been caused by rolling over a chock.

The NTSB reached out to the operator several times but failed to get in touch with the operator and crew. Also, the required Accident/Incident report 6120.1/2 was not returned to the NTSB, although several requests thereto were made.

The official NTSB Aviation Accident Final Report is available by clicking here.