LAX99LA062 · Beech C23
Beech C23 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From L06 to General William J Fox Airfield (WJF)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA062
- 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 C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N2313L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L06To General William J Fox Airfield (WJF), Lancaster, 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
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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, gust lock › Not removed
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot/ owner and his daughter had arrived at Furnace Creek after departing Lancaster earlier that morning. They toured Death Valley National Park for several hours and were preparing to return home. The pilot conducted his preflight check in the tie down area. After back taxiing on the runway and aligning the aircraft for takeoff, he became concerned that he would not be able to see approaching aircraft while he conducted his takeoff checklist. He decided to maintain his position but would expedite without using the written checklist from the glove compartment. He performed his run-up and completed the checks from memory. He announced his departure on Unicom, added full power, and began the takeoff roll. He estimated rotation speed (65 mph) was reached approximately 2/3 of the way down the runway. As he started to pull on the control yoke, he realized the gust lock pin was still in the locked position. He felt that he could not abort the takeoff at this point without departing the end of the runway at a high rate of speed. He attempted to remove the gust lock, which required him to depress a button on the bottom of the pin while pulling down on the shaft. As he was struggling with the pin, the aircraft overran the runway. The nose gear dug into the dirt and was sheared off. He estimated the aircraft came to rest 30-50 yards past the end of the runway. As he secured the cockpit the pilot noticed the key was sheared off, the throttle was pulled out and the shaft was bent down. He also noted that the control lock was on the floor with a broken piece of its neoprene housing. The pilot exited the aircraft behind his daughter.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection when he failed to remove the gust lock from the flight controls.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA062
- Event ID
- 20001211X11588
- Case number
- LAX99LA062
- 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 1998-12-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 44a2733870060c4f9a19266d702858c4113370dad07ef70eaa1fe2a122043d14; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:37:37.459Z.