LAX94LA338 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL) to Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA338
- 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 A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N36DY
- Operator
- Peter K. Weiser · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Tahoe Airport (TVL)To Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI), Watsonville, CA
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of South Lake Tahoe, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT JUST AFTER LIFT-OFF FROM RUNWAY 18 AT 50 FEET HE ENCOUNTERED A WINDSHEAR CONDITION AND A DOWNDRAFT. CONCURRENT WITH THE WINDSHEAR CONDITION, THE STALL WARNING HORN ACTIVATED AND THE AIRCRAFT CEASED TO CLIMB. THE PILOT SAID HE TRIED ONCE MORE TO GET THE AIRCRAFT TO ACCELERATE TO A SAFE GEAR AND FLAP RETRACTION SPEED AND CLIMB; HOWEVER, THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT RESPOND. THE PILOT SAID HE WAS CONCERNED ABOUT THE ABILITY OF THE AIRCRAFT TO CLIMB OVER TREES AND HIGHER TERRAIN BEYOND THE END OF THE RUNWAY, AND ABORTED THE TAKEOFF. THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO STOP THE AIRCRAFT PRIOR TO OVERRUNNING THE DEPARTURE END OF THE 8,544-FOOT-LONG RUNWAY AND COLLIDING WITH AN AIRPORT BOUNDARY FENCE. THE DENSITY ALTITUDE FOR THE TAKEOFF IN A 90-DEGREE CROSSWIND CONDITION WAS COMPUTED AT 8,700 FEET.
Probable cause
the pilot's delayed decision to abort the takeoff when the performance deficiency first became apparent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA338
- Event ID
- 20001206X02091
- Case number
- LAX94LA338
- 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: 637044c5122bcce9f9a0cdc44bee0494aee2380892373bd0387ca99987f007e6; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:47:26.618Z.