MIA98FA219 · Socata TBM-700
Socata TBM-700 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN) to Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98FA219
- 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
- 4 · 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
Socata TBM-700
- Aircraft type
- Socata TBM-700
- 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
- N69BS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN), Madison, WITo Black Hills Airport-Clyde Ice Field (SPF)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Spearfish, SD, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Witnesses observed the flight enter downwind for runway 30, after it had completed a published approach to runway 12, with a circle to land on runway 30. The witnesses, one of which was a commercial pilot said that there were jagged ceilings at the time about 400 to 500 feet above the ground. He and two other men with him saw the airplane below the clouds. As the airplane proceeded downwind, it momentarily entered a cloud. As the airplane came out of the cloud, it turned left in about a 30 degree turn. The angle of bank increased to about 70 to 80 degrees, the tail of the airplane came up, and the airplane impacted the ground nose first. Several pilots at the airport heard someone from N69BS make a radio transmission on the UNICOM frequency. What was heard by several people was that N69BS had broken out at 2200 feet. They then heard, 'N69BS turning base,' immediately followed by 'lookout' and 'oh ....' All of the eye witnesses agreed that at no time did they see or hear any problems with the engine. They all said that the sounds coming from the engine never changed. The published approach in use at the time of the accident was the GPS (global positioning system) runway 12. The pilot made his initial approach to runway 12, broke off the approach to the right, entered a right downwind for a landing on runway 30. The published circling minimums for the approach were MDA (minimum descent altitude) 4,800 feet, HAT (height above terrain) 869 feet. Using an approach speed of 90 knots, the minimum visibility was 1 mile. Using an approach speed of 120 knots, the minimum visibility was 1 1/4 miles. The field elevation was 3,931 feet. The profile for the GPS runway 12 approach showed that after the IAF (Jesee way point), the course was 204 degrees, at 7,000 feet, to the Dezzi way point, from Dezzi the course was 114 degrees, descend to 5,600, to Sophi way point, after Sophi descend to 4,800 feet to the missed approach point at the Ruste way point. The distance from Dezzi to Ruste was 10 miles.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane while turning to base leg. Contributing factors were low ceilings, clouds, and the pilot's failure to adhere to both the published approach procedures and the published minimum decent altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98FA219
- Event ID
- 20001211X10911
- Case number
- MIA98FA219
- 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: 76f9193a729b4b67b5186adf4967a0538043c14bb161fb65e07bedb2787e7132; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:28:37.383Z.