MIA94FA155 · Beech 95-C55
Beech 95-C55 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 68J · Havana, FL to Key West International Airport (EYW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94FA155
- 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
- 4 · 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-C55
- 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
- N966N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 68J · Havana, FLTo Key West International Airport (EYW), Key West, FL
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › In flight weather avoidance assistance, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A WEATHER BRIEFING THE PILOT ADVISED THE BRIEFER THAT ON A PREVIOUS FLIGHT THE CENTER CONTROLLER WAS PROVIDING VECTORS AROUND WEATHER. AFTER DEPARTURE DURING CRUISE FLIGHT WITHOUT ONBOARD WEATHER AVOIDANCE RADAR, THE CENTER CONTROLLER ADVISED THE PILOT OF WEATHER 10 MILES AHEAD BUT THAT OTHER AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN PICKING THEIR WAY THROUGH IT AND THE FLIGHT WAS CLEARED TO DEVIATE. THE FLIGHT CONTINUED WITHOUT DEVIATING OR REQUESTING ASSISTANCE BEFORE ENCOUNTERING THE WEATHER AND A SHORT TIME LATER THE PILOT REQUESTED ASSISTANCE FROM THE CONTROLLER TO GET OUT OF THE WEATHER ENCOUNTERED. THE CONTROLLER PROVIDED A HEADING TO FLY BUT RADAR AND RADIO CONTACT WERE LOST SHORTLY THEREAFTER. THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP. EXAMINATION OF ALL FRACTURE SURFACES REVEALED EVIDENCE OF OVERLOAD FAILURE. NO DETERMINATION COULD BE MADE IF THE AUTOPILOT SYSTEM WAS ENGAGED. THE ENGINES WERE EXAMINED WITH NO EVIDENCE OF PREIMPACT FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
DELAY BY THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO OBTAIN WEATHER AVOIDANCE ASSISTANCE FROM THE ARTCC CONTROLLER RESULTING IN THE INFLIGHT BREAKUP AFTER ENCOUNTER WITH A THUNDERSTORM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94FA155
- Event ID
- 20001206X01588
- Case number
- MIA94FA155
- 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: 34fade1aa8f92f208a991a66154a4d9ffc674519fe4d0b6c096ecf8e62b8c253; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:08:04.195Z.