MIA96LA174 · Beech 58
Iso Aero Service Beech 58 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) to Kinston Regional Jetport At Stallings Field (ISO)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA174
- 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
- Unknown
Beech 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N23806
- Operator
- Iso Aero Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), Raleigh, NCTo Kinston Regional Jetport At Stallings Field (ISO)
- 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
- Approach · IFR final 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Fatigue
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Kinston, NC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After being awake about 20 hrs, the pilot (plt) departed on a positioning flight (flt) at 0217 EDT after two previous flts; although, she said she contemplated 'staying the night in Raleigh because of the fatigue.' She used the aircraft (acft) heater, on the ground & during takeoff. She said that en route, she felt fatigued & contemplated returning to the departure airport, but continued flt. About 5 min before starting a VOR approach (apch), plt turned off the heater. Two times, while being vectored for apch, plt incorrectly read back the direction of turn (left vs right), but other details & radio transmissions were accurate & responsive. The plt said she fell asleep after putting gear down on apch Acft then collided with trees & the ground. Time of accident was about 0250 EDT. Postcrash fire erupted, but plt egressed with injuries that were considered minor. Investigators requested blood specimens to test for carboxyhemoglobin [carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning], but specimens were not provided. (Plt said that due to extreme pain, her doctor opted not to proceed with test.) Pressure testing of heater revealed leaks at a gasket & screw (where fuel nozzle was mounted) & at 2 of 3 cross-over tubes; but these were attributed to impact damage. No evidence was found of any preimpact heater failure or malfunction that would have allowed CO to have entered the cockpit. Two plts used the heater on previous flts, but neither of them noticed any heater problem or symptoms of CO poisoning. About 18 miles west, at 0255 EDT, the ceiling was 300 feet broken. MDA for the approach was 352 feet AGL (440 msl).
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain minimum descent altitude (MDA) during approach because of fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA174
- Event ID
- 20001208X06309
- Case number
- MIA96LA174
- 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: a3bbef4ae812ad157c0ab79b9487e9fabfa02e2a2be5c42a5bacf2d63306c21a; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:41:54.957Z.