LAX97FA177 · Beech A36TC
Beech A36TC · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From Juwata International Airport / Suharnoko Harbani AFB (TRK) to Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA177
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech A36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N6174N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Juwata International Airport / Suharnoko Harbani AFB (TRK)To Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), San Jose, 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Four witnesses observed the aircraft taxi to the takeoff end of runway 28 and delay for what they thought was sufficient time to accomplish an engine and flight control checkout. During takeoff, the aircraft was observed to liftoff at the midfield point on the 7,000 foot runway and begin a shallow climb. Near the departure end of the runway, at an estimated altitude of 100 to 150 feet agl, witnesses observed the aircraft enter a turn to the left and begin to rapidly lose altitude. The aircraft continued to lose altitude throughout the turn until it impacted the ground. Postcrash investigation did not disclose any preexisting flight control, fuel, or engine system malfunctions, nor did toxicology results of the pilot indicate impairment. The flight departure was to the west (at dusk) toward a good visual horizon left by the setting sun. However, as the aircraft turned left, the forward visual horizon became less discernible due to darkness and lack of ground references, such as lights, which were minimal. At the time of takeoff, the density altitude was approximately 7,800 feet msl.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain altitude and clearance above the terrain, while turning (for an unknown reason) back toward the airport after takeoff. Factors relating to the accident were: the environmental conditions (light conditions at dusk and high density altitude) and lack of visual cues, while turning toward darker conditions; and spatial disorientation of the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA177
- Event ID
- 20001208X07942
- Case number
- LAX97FA177
- 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 1997-05-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 414dedfc450991b0bb34295fab6f5d9258b1f3b25d2aeb5acf5f2913a694218d; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:57:54.143Z.