FTW91FA147 · Beech 35-C33
Beech 35-C33 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK) to Hale County Airport (PVW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operation. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW91FA147
- 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
- 3 · 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 Possible conflict
- 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 35-C33
- 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
- N887R
- Operator
- Sky Riders
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK), MC COOK, NETo Hale County Airport (PVW), Plainview, TX
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A DAY CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT THE NON-INSTRUMENT-RATED PRIVATE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO FLY INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC). THE PILOT HAD NOT FILED A FLIGHT PLAN; HOWEVER, HE WAS ADVISED ON AT LEAST FIVE OCCASIONS THAT THE WEATHER CONDITIONS ALONG HIS ROUTE OF FLIGHT WERE IMC, MARKED BY LOW CEILINGS, FOG, AND RAIN. THE AIRPLANE WAS BEING OPERATED UNDER A CONTRACT FOR A LOCAL MUNICIPALITY TO CARRY PASSENGERS ON A BUSINESS TRIP. THE AIRPLANE WAS FORCED TO A LOW ALTITUDE DUE TO THE ADVERSE WEATHER AND WAS SEEN FLYING AT ALTITUDES OF 60 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, IN AND OUT OF THE CLOUDS. DURING A VISUAL APPROACH TO THE AIRPORT, THE AIRPLANE ROLLED LEFT TO THE INVERTED POSITION AND IMPACTED THE GROUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER. FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE AND EXISTING WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW91FA147
- Event ID
- 20001212X17859
- Case number
- FTW91FA147
- 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: 049b8432a1cb86214cde582e9e8120b98909bdbe48f34cfd1bddddb1be56e498; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:38:08.294Z.