FTW99FA074 · Beech 95-B55
Beech 95-B55 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Hattiesburg Bobby L Chain Municipal Airport (HBG) to Memorial Field Airport (HOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99FA074
- 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 95-B55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 55
- 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
- N260LH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hattiesburg Bobby L Chain Municipal Airport (HBG), Hattiesburg, MSTo Memorial Field Airport (HOT), Hot Springs, AR
- 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 initial 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 object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Minimum descent altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the global positioning system (GPS) runway 5 approach to Hot Springs Memorial Airport, in instrument meteorological conditions, the twin-engine airplane impacted mountainous terrain at 1,020 feet msl, about one nautical mile (nm) right of the final approach course, and approximately 9 nm southwest of the airport. According to the approach plate, the airplane should have been at an altitude no lower than 2,300 feet on this segment of the approach. The last radar hit recorded was at 1622:44, as the airplane was descending through 2,800 feet, 14.2 nautical miles southwest of the airport. Two witnesses located near the accident site reported that about 1630 they heard a small aircraft coming from southwest of their farm, heading towards them at a 'very low' altitude. They heard the aircraft for about 10 seconds, then the sound of the engines was 'gone.' The witnesses also reported that the weather was 'extremely foggy,' and that they could not see the top of the mountain located behind their property. The missed approach procedure for the approach calls for a climbing right turn to 3,000 feet. Examination of the accident site indicated the airplane impacted trees while in a right turn. No anomalies were found with the airframe or engines that would have prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the minimum descent altitude during the instrument approach. Contributing factors were the pilot's failure to follow the instrument approach procedure, trees, mountainous terrain, low ceilings and foggy weather conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99FA074
- Event ID
- 20001204X00053
- Case number
- FTW99FA074
- 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: 93027d03f7fde0414c8a4d2faee4a6066f0e509278091d279fd12315e703cca3; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:15:45.774Z.