FTW99LA126 · Beech J35
Beech J35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From George R Carr Memorial Air Field (BXA) to Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA126
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech J35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N735B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George R Carr Memorial Air Field (BXA), Bogalusa, LATo Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF), Springfield, MO
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bass, AR, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departing Bogalusa, Louisiana, the pilot obtained a 'weather briefing from the Pan Am weather system. The pilot reported that while en route to Springfield, Missouri, he encountered broken and solid clouds below his cruise altitude of 6,500 feet msl. When he arrived at Springfield, the clouds below were solid, and the ATIS was reporting 500 foot ceilings. The pilot turned 180 degrees to return to an area of 'broken overcast to land and refuel.' The pilot then elected to perform a precautionary landing to a county road because 'he was getting low on fuel and the weather conditions were deteriorating.' The touchdown and rollout on the gravel road were uneventful; however, the road curved to the left, and the airplane continued straight colliding with a fence.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft directional control during landing roll on a gravel road. Factors were the clouds and low ceilings, the low fuel status, and the gravel road condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA126
- Event ID
- 20001205X00474
- Case number
- FTW99LA126
- 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: a8e3825404ccd9ce9daca7c2fdbd795d579fe224eb023bcd6ec2be47fc2cd7b8; retrieved 2026-09-22T15:23:56.563Z.