This paper presents a modeling approach to predict the angle beam ultrasonic pulse‐echo signals that can be captured from a surface breaking, vertical crack in a plate specimen in a computationally efficient manner. For this purpose, the 3‐D multi‐Gaussian beam models are adopted to describe the reflected beam fields from the surfaces of the crack and the specimen as well as the radiating beam field from the transducer, and the 2‐D ray methods to calculate the diffracted beam field from the crack tip. In addition, the characteristics of the ultrasonic testing system are considered in terms of the system efficiency factor. By combining these three ingredients, the surface breaking crack signals are predicted at different interrogating positions. The accuracy of the proposed models is verified by the initial experiments. © 2004 American Institute of Physics