CHI98FA017 · Beech G35
Beech G35 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL) to C77
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98FA017
- 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 G35
- 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
- N129B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport (JVL), Janesville, WITo C77
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Empennage › Flutter
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was cruising at 4,000 feet msl in clear sky conditions with smooth air, then he initiated a descent. He said that while descending through about 3,200 feet msl at 185 mph with a 5 degree nose down attitude and 15 degree left turn, the control yoke started oscillating fore and aft about 1/2 inch. The oscillations increased to about 1 inch fore and aft, and the airplane experienced 3 or 4 'solid jolts.' After about 5 seconds, the pilot reduced power, and the vibrations stopped. He continued to his destination and landed uneventfully. According to the Pilot Operating, the airplane's never exceed airspeed (Vne) was 202 mph. The maximum cruise airspeed (Vno), was 175 mph. Inspection of the airplane revealed that the aft fuselage received extensive damage between fuselage station (FS) 256.9 and the 233.5 bulkhead. The longerons were bent downward with a permanent 2.5 to 3 inch bend. The left and right side fuselage panels below the stabilizers exhibited 45 degree buckling from the bottom of the FS 256.9 bulkhead to forward of the stabilizer cuffs. The bottom fuselage panel forward of the 256.9 bulkhead had popped rivets and torn skin. There were three creases in the right stabilizer. No pre-existing cracks were found on the longerons. The ruddervators were properly balanced.
Probable cause
flutter for an undetermined reason, which resulted in structural damage to the aft fuselage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98FA017
- Event ID
- 20001208X08957
- Case number
- CHI98FA017
- 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: b30557fb09cc97cd3e807371bcb003f1113f236f5fa834eed9ad198f5ef819b2; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:24:51.900Z.