LAX94FA048 · Beech V-35
Beech V-35 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to Furnace Creek Airport (L06)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94FA048
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech V-35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft V-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
- N630AW
- Operator
- Gary L. MC Coy · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, CATo Furnace Creek Airport (L06), Death Valley, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT, THE AIRCRAFT CROSSED HIGH MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WHERE AREAS OF RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS WERE REPORTED. AIRMETS HAD BEEN ISSUED FOR TURBULENCE, MOUNTAIN OBSCURATION, AND ICING CONDITIONS. SATELLITE IMAGES REVEALED THE PRESENCE OF STANDING LENTICULAR CLOUDS. A WEATHER BRIEFING WAS NOT OBTAINED AND NO FLIGHT PLAN WAS FILED. NO VOICE COMMUNICATIONS WERE RECEIVED FROM THE AIRCRAFT AND NO IN-FLIGHT SERVICES WERE BEING PROVIDED BY THE FAA. RADAR DATA INDICATED THAT THE AIRPLANE MADE SEVERAL MANEUVERING TURNS AND A RAPID DESCENT BEFORE RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED AN IN-FLIGHT BREAKUP AND WAS SCATTERED OVER A 3/4-MILE AREA. A TRAJECTORY STUDY INDICATED THAT THE LOCATION OF THE SEPARATED AIRPLANE COMPONENTS WAS CONSISTENT WITH A BREAKUP ALTITUDE OF 14,000 FEET.
Probable cause
An in-flight breakup of the airplane following the pilot's continued VFR flight into IMC conditions during which directional control of the airplane was not maintained, and the design limits of the airplane were exceeded. The pilot's inadequate evaluation of the weather conditions that consisted of mountain wave activity and standing lenticular clouds were factors in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94FA048
- Event ID
- 20001211X13743
- Case number
- LAX94FA048
- 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: e2261a887a613fe309a4d4582db828b9a46d9dace46b2c3b6896d214da9172af; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:19:23.990Z.