ATL99LA077 · Beech 23-B24R
Beech 23-B24R · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From 5A3 to Batesville Regional Airport (BVX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA077
- 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
- 0 · 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 23-B24R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N12RF
- Operator
- Rayburn E. Farmer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 5A3To Batesville Regional Airport (BVX), Batesville, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to witnesses, the ceiling was about 50 feet above the ground, and the takeoff appeared to be normal until the collision with trees. According to the FAA Inspector on-scene, the aircraft collided with trees and rising terrain and subsequently the ground in a wooded area about 1.6 miles south of the airport. Examination of the wreckage revealed that the airplane had collided with trees up-slope on the north side of a ridge, at the 3800 foot level. The slope of the ridge was approximately 25 degrees. The initial crash path through the trees was inclined 3-5 degrees. Examination of the engine found it heat damaged from the post-impact fire. All of the accessory components were destroyed. Engine examination and partial disassembly found no evidence of any pre-impact mechanical deficiencies that would have prevented the engine from developing power.
Probable cause
The pilots failure to obtain/maintain proper climb rate during initial climbout. This resulted in the collision with the mountain/hilly terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA077
- Event ID
- 20001205X00426
- Case number
- ATL99LA077
- 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: aceeff0d98cbffd63ef1ddb4a98a60d8d3137f218389ae0da9289691c0eff9a2; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:08:02.169Z.