ATL99FA044 · Beech 300
USA Healthcare-Leasing Beech 300 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Greenville Downtown Airport (GMU) to 3A1 · AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99FA044
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 300
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 300
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N780BF
- Operator
- USA Healthcare-Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenville Downtown Airport (GMU), GREENEVILLE, SCTo 3A1 · AL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · IFR missed approach
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane descended to 2,600 feet to the NDB, and initiated the approach upon crossing the NDB. As the airplane descended below 1,500 feet MSL, Huntsville lost radar contact. The next communication with the airplane was when the pilot radioed that he was initiating the missed approach. The published missed approach procedure is, 'Climbing lift turn to 2,700 direct CPP NDB and hold.' The airplane made a series of turns within the next one minute and 24 seconds. Additionally, the airplane's altitude varied but it never climbed above the altitude of 1,700 feet. The airplane wreckage was located approximately 3.5 miles north of the airport on a 345 degree heading on the opposite side of the outbound course to the NDB. Witnesses in the immediate area stated that they could hear the airplane flying low over their homes but could not see it due to the foggy conditions. A review of pilot records did not show the pilot having any fixed wing airplane experience.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adhere to the missed approach procedure resulting in a collision with terrain. Contributing factors were fog and the rotorcraft rated pilot's lack of fixed wing certification/experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99FA044
- Event ID
- 20001204X00006
- Case number
- ATL99FA044
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 89221bb133d4338663f0a1e7e4e3cdd6e9d4237230e0d044e305697f448f2991; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:16:21.822Z.