BFO91FA068 · Beech V35A
Beech V35A · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From PTG · Pennington Gap, VA to Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO91FA068
- 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 V35A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 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
- N118CB
- Operator
- Bruce L. Van Huss · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PTG · Pennington Gap, VATo Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD), Rockford, IL
- 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 · climb to 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 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE TAKING OFF FM THE UNCTLD ARPT, THE FLT OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING, FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN & RCVD AN INSTRUMENT CLNC BY TELEPHONE WITH A VOID TIME OF 15 MIN LATER. A WITNESS ESTIMATED THE ARPT WX WAS 200' OVC, VIS 1 TO 5 MI WITH FOG, AND STONE MTN (NORTH OF THE ARPT) WAS OBSCURED. THE ACFT DEPD FM RWY 25 WITH 4 RATED PLTS ABOARD. THE OWNER (A NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT) WAS IN THE LEFT FNT SEAT & A COMMERCIAL RATED INSTRUCTOR PLT (PIC/CFI/CFII) WAS IN THE RGT FNT SEAT. SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, THE ACFT CRASHED INTO STONE MTN, APRX 2.5 MI FROM THE ARPT, ON A HDG OF ABT 310 DEG. AN EXAM REVEALED THE THROWOVER YOKE WAS TO THE LEFT. LOGS SHOWED THE OWNER HAD BEEN RCVG INSTRUMENT INSTRUCTION FM THE INSTRUCTOR IN THE RGT FNT SEAT. THE INSTRUMENT DEP PROC WAS TO CLIMB VISUALLY OVR ARPT TO 2800', THEN CONT CLIMB VIA DRCT LONG HOLLOW NON-DRCTNL BCN HOLDING PATTERN TO 5000' BEFORE PROCEEDING ON COURSE. ETHANOL WAS DETECTED IN THE RGT FNT SEAT OCCUPANT'S BLOOD; HOWEVER, THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF DECOMPOSITION IN THE SAMPLE.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND (PIC) TO ASSURE THAT THE INSTRUMENT DEPARTURE PROCEDURE WAS FOLLOWED AND THAT THE AIRCRAFT REMAINED CLEAR OF MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO91FA068
- Event ID
- 20001212X17458
- Case number
- BFO91FA068
- 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: 070bfb712a89342670b9b19328d2a8c90f439c0e9b9b2eb0918875e04e848431; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:40:58.502Z.