LAX01FA001 · Beech A36TC
Beech A36TC · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH) to Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX01FA001
- 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 A36TC
- 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
- N36TV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mammoth Yosemite Airport (MMH), Mammoth Lakes, CATo Watsonville Municipal Airport (WVI), Watsonville, CA
- 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 · descent
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with mountainous/hilly terrain as the pilot descended in instrument conditions toward the destination airport. The non-instrument rated pilot was obtaining VFR flight advisories from Air Traffic Control, and told approach control that he intended to head for his destination in visual conditions. A few minutes later the pilot stated that he intended to circle down through a hole. At this time, approach lost radar contact at a mode C reported altitude of 3,500 feet on a southeasterly track in an area of hilly terrain where it is not uncommon to loose radar contact at that altitude or less. The controller assumed that he was losing the radar contact, terminated radar service, and approved a frequency change. The controller did not hear a response from the airplane. At 2009:29, the target was at a mode C reported altitude of 2,200 feet. By 2011:03, the target had turned left on a southwesterly track and was at a mode C reported altitude of 1,300 feet. This was the last recorded target for the flight's assigned secondary beacon code. The accident site elevation was about 1,000 feet. A resident who lived near the accident site reported that it was very foggy about the time of the accident, and estimated that the visibility was 100 feet..
Probable cause
the pilot's in-flight decision to continue flight into instrument weather conditions at an altitude that did not maintain an adequate terrain clearance, which resulted in a collision with terrain. Factors were a dark night, clouds, fog, mountainous terrain, and lack of instrument rating.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX01FA001
- Event ID
- 20001212X22175
- Case number
- LAX01FA001
- 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 2000-10-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f5695df080a9a04c0f2551f7ab4756be8f977ed92d7d5148a0e5c6598f95040e; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:50:09.920Z.