It was 10 years ago on this day (2014), on a Thursday morning, a Beechcraft Super King Air B200 twin turboprop airplane, while taking off, crashed into the Citation Flight Safety building at Mid-Continent Airport in the southwest part of Wichita, leaving four people dead.
The pilot was on a solo ferry flight from Wichita bound for Mena, Arkansas, when shortly after takeoff, he informed Air Traffic Control that he'd lost his left engine. The plane banked left and crashed in flames into the north building of the Flight Safety International Cessna pilot's training center at 1851 Airport Road. The plane was totally destroyed by impact forces and the post-crash fire, killing the pilot. In the building, three people were killed as well, and at least six others injured, four of them seriously. At the time of the accident, more than 100 people were inside the building which was partially destroyed by fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded the crash most likely occurred because of the pilot's inability to successfully control the aircraft after a reduction in power from the left engine.
Shortly after takeoff, the plane made several oscillations in altitude then began a turn to the left climbing slowly. The Beechcraft continued turning left, missing the top of a hangar on the west side of the runway with marginal clearance.
With the landing gear extended and in a 29-degree slip left, the plane hit the northeast corner of the FSI building at 92 knots while descending at 1,600 feet-per-minute. The flight duration from takeoff-to-impact was 26 seconds with the aircraft reaching a maximum altitude of approximately 120 feet.
The three people killed in the building were trapped inside one of several flight simulators.
The 14-year-old aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney turboprop engines, owned and operated by Gilleland Aviation Inc., which had bought the plane two days prior to the crash. Eight days earlier, major scheduled maintenance was completed, including internal inspections of both engines. The Beechcraft had logged 1.4 hours flight time and two takeoff/landing cycles after the maintenance.
The pilot and sole occupant was 53-year-old Mark Goldstein, a retired Air Traffic Controller from Wichita who held a valid Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) second-class medical certificate.