FTW97FA092 · Beech 95-B55
Beech 95-B55 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR) to Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA092
- 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
- 3 · 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 95-B55
- 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
- N47SM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (GYR), Goodyear, AZTo Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW), Roswell, NM
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The outboard portion of the right wing of the twin engine airplane impacted a pine tree in mountainous terrain during a night cross country flight. About 12 minutes prior to the accident, while 49 miles short of their intermediate destination, the pilot reported picking up ice at 9,500 feet MSL and reported that he was diverting to El Paso. ATC granted the frequency change to El Paso; however, no further radio calls were received. At 2005, a witness near the accident site, reported hearing the airplane flying at 'tree top level over his house' on a southeast direction. He stated that a low ceiling prevailed, the temperature was just above freezing and snow flurries restricted his visibility. Witnesses traveling on a gravel road adjacent to the accident site reported the lights of the airplane flying at tree top level prior the crash. The auxiliary fuel cell for the right engine was compromised by the initial collision with the pine tree and the 3 remaining tanks were destroyed by post-impact fire. Both fuel selectors were found in the AUX position. No discrepancies were found that would have prevented normal operations. The pilot had accumulated 7.5 hours of flight within the last 12 hours.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with trees and terrain. Factors were the mountainous terrain, the snow obscuring the visibility, the dark night illumination, and the pilot's fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA092
- Event ID
- 20001208X07278
- Case number
- FTW97FA092
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-01-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1d051391eb40d00a6e5cc2dee5e45161acebb2e3b4a6b7d726b26bdad9b1e66c; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:03:08.574Z.