Executive Flight Beech 95-C55 accident
Beech 95-C55 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Tradewind Airport (TDW) to RDB · TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA123
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 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
- N4825J
- Operator
- Executive Flight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tradewind Airport (TDW), Amarillo, TXTo RDB · TX
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was unable to lower the flaps. He elected to land on runway 35, which was 3801' in length, although a 6451' runway (runway 31) was available. During the landing, the airplane touched down approximately one third of the way down the runway with a high ground speed. To avoid an overrun, he attempted to turn off at the end of the runway onto a taxiway. During the turn, the airplane skidded, and the main landing gear collapsed. The flap motor was tested and found to be inoperative. The pilot stated that when he exited the airplane, he noticed a 10 to15 knot tailwind.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to use a more favorable runway, and his failure to go-around, when he realized the airplane would not touch down at the proper touchdown point. Factors relating to the accident were: the inoperative flap motor, failure of the pilot to obtain proper wind information, the tailwind, and failure of the pilot to attain the proper touchdown point during the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA123
- Event ID
- 20001208X05252
- Case number
- FTW96LA123
- 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: 0d113d7545c14f495f928b1528d76bdf1a3aa848a07ffed6adedad9d68bf6939; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:53:21.664Z.