What happened
During a night positioning flight under visual meteorological conditions, the aircraft departed the runway without initial difficulty. Following takeoff, the landing gear was seen to retract as expected. A local resident reported hearing a loud engine noise and seeing the aircraft positioned just above the tree line. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft experienced a sudden downward pitch and struck the ground, leading to an explosion.
The wreckage was located in a soybean field approximately half a mile from the runway's end. Investigators identified two distinct sets of ground scars at the start of the debris trail. The first set of scars, measuring roughly 2 to 3 feet, was situated 380 feet south of the primary wreckage. A second set of scars, measuring between 10 and 12 feet, was found 10 feet ahead of the first; these contained fragments of the left and right engines. Notably, the area of the field between the second set of scars and the main debris field showed no impact damage.
Findings
Prior to the flight, maintenance crews had performed work to replace a frayed elevator trim cable, a task that was overseen and verified by the pilot. While a large portion of the aircraft was destroyed by a post-crash fire, a physical examination of the airframe showed no evidence of a failure occurring before the impact. Analysis of the propellers indicated they were still functioning and rotating at the time of the crash. The pilot, who possessed 22,500 total flight hours including over 1,700 hours in this specific model, was the sole occupant of the aircraft. No specific cause for the sudden descent was identified in the wreckage examination.