LAX98FA095 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Big Bear City Airport (L35) to McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98FA095
- 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 A36
- 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
- N3103W
- Operator
- Howard R. Burchill · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear City, CATo McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ), Carlsbad, 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
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Weather forecast, disregarded
- Pilot in command › Wind information, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with mountainous terrain about 11.3 nautical miles south-southeast of the departure airport. The departure airport's automated weather observation system was reporting skies clear to 12,000 feet above ground level (agl), with winds from 220 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 26 knots at the estimated time of departure. The pilot received a weather briefing 1 hour 46 minutes prior to departure. He was informed that the winds at 9,000 feet mean sea level (msl) over the area were 210 degrees at 50 knots, and that conditions would get worse by 1100. The briefing also contained AIRMETS for mountain obscuration, moderate turbulence, and moderate rime and mixed icing above the freezing level. The accident site elevation was approximately 10,300 feet msl. The airplane approached the accident site on a heading of approximately 240 degrees. This would have placed the airplane on the lee side of a high ridgeline with winds exceeding 50 knots. There was a valley extending towards the southwest directly in front of and 90 degrees to the ridgeline on which the airplane crashed. This valley may have produced a funneling effect, which would have significantly accelerated the wind flow over the ridge. Satellite imagery of the site at the time of the accident showed high clouds above the mountains. The cloud tops were estimated to be 13,000 feet. Additionally, rotor clouds could be seen southwest of the crash site. Studies have shown that severe turbulence, wind shear, and downdrafts are commonly found on the downwind side of high mountainous terrain when high wind conditions exist. The maximum climb rate for the airplane at 9,000 feet under static conditions was calculated to be 900 feet per minute. No preimpact mechanical malfunctions were found during examination of the wreckage.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain altitude due to an encounter with adverse winds and downdrafts on the lee side of a mountain. Also causal was the pilot's inadequate weather evaluation, which precipitated his intentional flight into an area of known adverse weather in high mountainous terrain. Factors include terrain induced turbulence and downdrafts as a result of high wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98FA095
- Event ID
- 20001211X09564
- Case number
- LAX98FA095
- 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: 291bfb0c60be40fd71bc2a79b4167412e2ca7ae6ae9aebb96f395dd9531b6b4f; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:40:29.038Z.