FTW97LA211 · Beech 58
Beech 58 · Accident: overrun during takeoff
From Wiley Post Airport (PWA) to UKNOWN
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA211
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
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
- N22SS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wiley Post Airport (PWA)To UKNOWN
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Flight control, elevator › Not installed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not possible
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll the airplane overran the departure end of the runway. The aircraft traveled 600 to 800 feet impacting the localizer antenna, and continued approximately 100 feet impacting the airport perimeter fence. It continued across a ditch and road coming to rest 50 feet south of the road. Examination of the airplane revealed that the elevator was not installed. According to the owner, he was having the airplane refurbished, and the elevator had been removed for painting on June 1, 1997. According to blood samples taken at the hospital about one hour 12 minutes after the accident, the pilot had a blood alcohol concentration of 180 mg/dl. The pilot and passenger were not authorized by the owner to use the airplane. The pilot's commercial certificate was revoked seven years prior for stealing an airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's impairment of judgment and performance due to alcohol which led to an attempted takeoff in an airplane without an elevator installed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA211
- Event ID
- 20001208X08116
- Case number
- FTW97LA211
- 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 1997-06-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: eb515089a40104c5433584be5f452c421c1d654c5ca5e5d074a29fb3c60fa350; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:25:44.270Z.