NYC96LA071 · Beech C24R
Beech C24R · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) to Teterboro Airport (TEB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA071
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech C24R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 24
- 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
- N6625P
- Operator
- Robert W. Schmelzer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MDTo Teterboro Airport (TEB), TETERBORO, NJ
- 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
- Airframe › Ice
- Induction air control/system › Ice
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot received a preflight weather briefing and was advised of precautions for occasional moderated mixed and rime icing, as well as isolated severe mixed and clear icing, along the route of flight. En route, he encountered icing conditions and ice accretion on the aircraft. Manifold pressure began decreasing, and the pilot was unable to maintain altitude. Subsequently, he made a forced landing in a residential area, and the airplane struck a house and a car. The pilot stated, 'At 5000 feet, I expected to be above the freezing level, due to a temperature inversion, this was the case until I reached the Philadelphia area, I then encountered light mixed icing on the leading edges...Subsequently my manifold pressure dropped to 21 inches, and I began to lose altitude...Although I expected to receive an increase in manifold pressure on my descent, none occurred. At about 2000 feet, I felt that I could not make (a nearby airport) and declared a mayday. I was maintaining 95 knots.' Postaccident examination of the airplane included an functional check of the engine in a test cell. The engine operated rich below 1800 RPM, and takeoff power was achieved. No mechanical discrepancies were noted with the airplane.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, and his resultant flight into known icing conditions, which resulted in ice accumulation, loss of engine power, a forced landing, and subsequent collision with a residence and a vehicle. A factor relating to the accident was: the adverse weather (icing) condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA071
- Event ID
- 20001208X05471
- Case number
- NYC96LA071
- 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: 5c929115ec340141b49d2b82ad88412ddf660859896ea5c7e35d50a4af7b920a; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:51:47.209Z.