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ATL92LA159 · Beech A36

12 Aug 1992 · Guntersville, AL, United States

Trees Unlimited Beech A36 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route

From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT) to DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK)

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Event

NTSB case
ATL92LA159
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
Instrument 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
N416HC
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field (LIT), Little Rock, ARTo DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Atlanta, GA
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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Design stress limits of aircraft › Exceeded
  • Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
  • Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PILOT WAS PROCEEDING TO HIS DESTINATION AT FLIGHT LEVEL 210, BETWEEN CLOUD LAYERS. HE WAS APPROACHING A CLOUD CELL, AND REQUESTED TO DEVIATE TO THE NORTH. THE PILOT NOTICED NOTHING ON HIS WEATHER RADAR, AND HE DECIDED TO CONTINUE ON COURSE AFTER A VFR AIRCRAFT AHEAD OF HIM REPORTED NO SIGNIFICANT TURBULENCE. AS HE ENTERED THE CLOUD FORMATION, THERE WAS 'ONE VERY HARD HIT OF TURBULENCE', WITH ASSOCIATED ICE AND HAIL. HE THEN LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT. AFTER A LOSS OF ABOUT 10,000 FEET OF ALTITUDE, HE WAS ABLE TO REGAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL. DURING THE RECOVERY, HE NOTICED THE AIRSPEED IN EXCESS OF 'RED LINE.' HE LANDED THE AIRPLANE AT A NEARBY AIRPORT WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. AN FAA INSPECTOR DETERMINED THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS STRUCTURALLY DAMAGED IN FLIGHT. NTAP RADAR DATA SHOWS THAT THE FLIGHT PENETRATED AN AREA OF HEAVY WEATHER RETURNS.

Probable cause

THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE EVALUATION OF THE IN FLIGHT WEATHER CONDITIONS, AND HIS SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL, WHICH RESULTED IN THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT BEING EXCEEDED. FACTORS WERE CLOUDS, THE ASSOCIATED TURBULENCE, AND THE HAIL IN THE CLOUDS.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ATL92LA159
Event ID
20001211X15323
Case number
ATL92LA159
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: cc632411464ddc9903a76428d32821b5994317e57de861b5071064aabf25a7bb; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:10:05.125Z.