LAX95LA203 · Beech B23
Beech B23 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From O68 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX95LA203
- 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 B23
- 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
- N6985Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From O68To 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT WHILE ON HIS FOURTH TAKEOFF, THE AIRPLANE 'QUIT FLYING, BOUNCED ACROSS MERIDIAN BETWEEN RUNWAY AND TAXIWAY, SLID ACROSS THE TAXIWAY AND STOPPED.' THE PILOT STATED THAT OBSERVERS AND WITNESSES TOLD HIM THAT THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE BACKFIRED AND IT SOUNDED LIKE THE ENGINE THROTTLED BACK THEN FORWARD AGAIN. THE RESPONDING FAA INSPECTOR FOUND NO WITNESSES WHO GAVE A REPORT SIMILAR TO THE PILOT'S IMPRESSION. THE FAA INSPECTOR REPORTED THAT THE PILOT SAID HE LOST DIRECTIONAL CONTROL AT LIFT-OFF, VEERED OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY, AND COLLIDED WITH THE TAXIWAY. DAMAGE TO THE PROPELLER, THE NOSE GEAR, THE NOSE COWLING, LOWER ENGINE MOUNT, AND FIREWALL RESULTED. THE PILOT DID NOT REPORT HIS FLIGHT TIME IN THE 90-DAY PERIOD PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. REVIEW OF THE AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE RECORDS DISCLOSED THAT THE AIRCRAFT HAS FLOWN ONLY 7 HOURS SINCE AUGUST OF 1994. AFTER THE ACCIDENT, THE AIRPLANE WAS EXAMINED BY AN AIRFRAME AND POWERPLANT MECHANIC. THE MECHANIC DID NOT FIND ANY DISCREPANCY IN THE AIRFRAME OR THE ENGINE.
Probable cause
the pilot's premature liftoff and his failure to attain and maintain sufficient airspeed during the intial climb which resulted in an inadvertent stall/mush back onto the runway. The pilot's failure to maintain directional control as the aircraft touched down again is also causal. A factor in the accident is the pilot's lack of recent flight experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX95LA203
- Event ID
- 20001207X03737
- Case number
- LAX95LA203
- 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: 080c29ddefb782e2ab979cbbdc06ab029fa50b6e6f1901f81b7a2ab4b48366bb; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:53:16.063Z.