FTW91FA049 · Beech 36
Beech 36 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW91FA049
- 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
- 2 · 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 36
- 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
- N23535
- Operator
- Jack W. Wolf · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TXTo 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
- Approach
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Minimum descent altitude, disregarded
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
FOLLOWING AN IFR FLIGHT FROM EL PASO, TEXAS, TO NEW BRAUNFELS, TEXAS, THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO MAKE AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH TO THE NEW BRAUNFELS AIRPORT. WEATHER AT THE TIME OF THE APPROACH WAS BELOW PUBLISHED MINIMUMS OF 600 FEET AND 1 1/4 MILES VISIBILITY AND THE PILOT WAS AWARE OF THIS FACT PRIOR TO INITIATING THE APPROACH. THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED THROUGH THE MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE AND IMPACTED RIGHT OF THE RUNWAY CENTERLINE. THE AIRPLANE STRUCK THE GROUND WITH ITS LEFT WING DURING A STEEP LEFT TURN AND CARTWHEELED TO ITS FINAL RESTING PLACE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DISREGARD FOR THE MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE AND FAILURE TO PERFORM A MISSED APPROACH. FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S ATTEMPT TO FLY INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, LOW CEILING, RAIN, AND FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW91FA049
- Event ID
- 20001212X16598
- Case number
- FTW91FA049
- 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 1991-03-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2932adf1b86841202708b8e0e54c14387b09098458d11ae9fe15285fad9835fa; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:54:40.612Z.