ATL94LA068 · Beech C23
Beech C23 · Accident: undershoot during landing
From Shiflet Field (9A9) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94LA068
- 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 C23
- 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
- N9722Q
- Operator
- Bowles, Alfred E. JR · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Shiflet Field (9A9), Marion, NCTo not recorded
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE WAS ATTEMPTING A NIGHT LANDING UNDER VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. HE STATED THAT HE DROPPED HIS FLASHLIGHT ON SHORT FINAL APPROACH, AND BENT DOWN TO PICK THE FLASHLIGHT UP. HE SAID THAT WHEN HE LOOKED UP, THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK THE RUNWAY AND BOUNCED. THE PILOT LEFT THE SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT AND RETURNED TO HIS HOME IN MARYLAND WITHOUT REPORTING THE ACCIDENT TO AUTHORITIES. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK THE TERRAIN 40 FEET SHORT OF THE APPROACH END OF THE RUNWAY. THERE WERE SEVERAL EMPTY BEER CANS FOUND IN THE COCKPIT AREA OF THE AIRCRAFT, AND ONE FULL CAN OF BEER FOUND IN THE PILOT'S LUGGAGE.
Probable cause
The poor in-flight decision by the pilot to divert his attention from the runway on short final in order to retrieve a flashlight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94LA068
- Event ID
- 20001206X00847
- Case number
- ATL94LA068
- 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: 2926c79a5eb2c925fb6be85823d5f15e1b114cd1d875dbae0a2753c1582c8176; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:13:46.408Z.