LAX93LA137 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: hard landing
From Catalina Airport (AVX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA137
- 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 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
- N43Y
- Operator
- James C. Bunnell · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Catalina Airport (AVX), Avalon, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vref), inadequate
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID HE MONITORED THE ATIS WHILE INBOUND TO RUNWAY 19R AND THAT THE REPORTED WINDS WERE FROM 230 DEGREES AT 12 KNOTS. WHILE ON DOWNWIND THE PILOT SAID HE OBSERVED A TWIN ENGINE AIRCRAFT LAND, 'NOTING THE CRAB ANGLE FOR CROSS WIND EFFECTS.' THE PILOT STATED THAT HE DID NOT HEAR THE LOCAL CONTROLLER PROVIDE 'GUST ADVISORIES' WHILE HE WAS IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN. THE PILOT SAID THAT ABOUT 50 FEET ABOVE THE RUNWAY 'WE ENCOUNTERED A STRONG DOWNDRAFT THAT BROUGHT US TO (THE) RUNWAY AND BACK UP TO ABOUT 40 FEET AGL.' THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE ATTEMPTED TO GO AROUND BUT THAT THE AIRCRAFT CONTACTED THE GROUND NEAR THE RUNWAY EDGE AND THEN LEFT THE PAVEMENT AND RAN INTO THE GRASS AREA BETWEEN THE RUNWAYS. THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH SEVERAL RUNWAY SIGNS AND SHEARED OFF THE LANDING GEAR. TRANSCRIPTS OF RECORDED AIR TO GROUND RADIO COMMUNICATIONS REVEALED THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS SEQUENCED BEHIND ANOTHER AIRCRAFT AND CLEARED TO LAND AT 1340:37. AT 1341:39, THE CONTROLLER IN RESPONSE TO A REQUEST BY ANOTHER AIRCRAFT FOR THE CURRENT WINDS BROADCAST 'WIND TWO FOUR ZERO AT ONE TWO.' THE OFFICIAL WEATHER OBSERVATION TAKEN IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ACCIDENT REPORTED THE WINDS FROM 270 DEGREES AT 10 KNOTS WITH GUSTS TO 15 KNOTS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE COMPENSATION FOR THE EXISTING WIND CONDITIONS AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AN ADEQUATE APPROACH REFERENCE AIRSPEED. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S LOW EXPERIENCE IN THE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA137
- Event ID
- 20001211X11858
- Case number
- LAX93LA137
- 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: c677827cf0bde5cd436c4c46eaf277a809bbc33dfd03802c111195ae8f259ff4; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:18:20.006Z.