LAX92FA065 · Beech 58P
Beech 58P · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92FA065
- 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 58P
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N766BA
- Operator
- D. Kaufman
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prescott Regional Airport - Ernest A. Love Field (PRC), Prescott, AZTo 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 · circling (IFR)
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Flagstaff, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on 4/21/2016. Please see the public docket for this accident for additional information.**
The instrument-rated commercial pilot was executing a circling VOR/DME instrument approach in IFR conditions. The pilot reported the runway in sight and was circling to land west of the airport just before the accident. Witnesses reported that the airplane descended in a near vertical attitude from the overcast, striking a highway curb lane about .75 miles from the airport. No evidence of preimpact failures or malfunctions with the primary flight controls or engines was found. The pitch trim position could not be determined conclusively because the trim control cables were broken and disrupted by impact. However, evidence was not sufficient to conclude that full nose-down trim was present at the time of upset. An examination of the autopilot annunciator module indicated that the HDG, NAV, AUTOTRIM and FAIL warning lights may have been illuminated. When the autopilot detects a trim system failure, the trim servo is deactivated and the AUTOTRIM and FAIL warning lights will flash. The AUTOTRIM light will also flash if the trim master switch is turned off, making the autopilot system evidence inconclusive.
Because the autopilot system evidence was inconclusive, the role of the autopilot in the accident could not be determined. However, airplane descent information provided by witnesses and impact evidence were consistent with an aerodynamic stall at low altitude and were not consistent with an uncorrected autopilot induced pitch-down excursion.
Probable cause
**This report was modified on 4/21/2016. Please see the public docket for this accident for additional information.**
the pilot's failure to maintain airspeed at low altitude, which resulted in a stall and loss of airplane control during a circling approach to landing in instrument meteorological conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92FA065
- Event ID
- 20001212X18613
- Case number
- LAX92FA065
- 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: 6b28aaf1ddc3a6f2a4bcef75eef1c2721e2ab634d37f78eefb9c7dde56d03ec9; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:26:47.752Z.