LAX97FA067 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From San Rafael Airport (CA35) to Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA067
- 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
- 1 · 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 V35B
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N6056M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From San Rafael Airport (CA35), SMITH RANCH, CATo Truckee Tahoe Airport (TRK), Truckee, 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Weather condition › Icing conditions
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lake Tahoe, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was advised of moderate turbulence below 18,000 feet msl, with a freezing level reported to be 9,300 feet and rime icing expected. En route the pilot changed his destination to Lake Tahoe instead of Truckee. He was requested to hold at the Squaw Valley VOR at 13,000 feet and to expect a clearance into Lake Tahoe. The pilot stated that he was in rime icing and requested 12,000 and, unable to hold at 12,000 feet, requested 11,000 feet. He was given a heading change and requested to maintain 11,000 feet. He then requested a 180-degree turn and later reported that he was now out of the clouds and in the clear, but he had a lot of ice. He then stated 'we're declaring an emergency I'm going down.' ATC provided the pilot with a heading change to which he acknowledged. That was the last communication with the pilot.
Probable cause
the pilot's intentional flight into adverse weather and improper in-flight planning and decision making.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA067
- Event ID
- 20001208X07184
- Case number
- LAX97FA067
- 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: 551563633e0545bb8e96558bd4f7d38bae81126e6811e3dd4401aeece3461357; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:05:46.944Z.