FTW97FA313 · Beech B24R
Abilene Aero Beech B24R · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI) to Flying V Ranch Airport (T26)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA313
- 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
- 2 · 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 B24R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 24
- 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
- N2521W
- Operator
- Abilene Aero
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI), Abilene, TXTo Flying V Ranch Airport (T26), TX
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the night instructional flight in which a steep climb was initiated after takeoff, the aircraft descended near vertical, impacted trees and terrain. A post impact fire and explosion ensued. Witnesses reported that the airplane lifted off the runway, accelerated as it remained in ground effect, and near the departure end of the runway, climbed in a vertical attitude, banked, and then descended. Local authorities and the flight instructor's students had previously observed the flight instructor perform this maneuver in single-engine high-wing aircraft. The flight instructor had 17.1 hours in this low wing single engine aircraft including one night flight (1.5 hours) with takeoffs and landings. Physical evidence at the site indicated that the airplane impacted the ground in a nose low attitude in a left bank. The gear and flaps were in the retracted configuration. No evidence of any pre-impact mechanical anomalies were found. Flight control continuity was established. The stabilator up cable was found severed due to arcing and tensile overload.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain aircraft control during the takeoff/initial climb. A factor was the flight instructor's lack of experience in the make and model of aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA313
- Event ID
- 20001208X08611
- Case number
- FTW97FA313
- 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 1997-08-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a6cb87c0c5e159ae651bb454f60605ac676687e5fa1949525673299c4e11ed27; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:51:13.553Z.