BFO90FA074 · Beech C35
Beech C35 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO90FA074
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech C35
- 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
- N1540V
- Operator
- Chmielewski, Raymond S. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MDTo 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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 › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
GROUND WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THEY OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE AS IT MANEUVERED IN THE VICINITY OF THE AIRPORT. THEY SAW THE AIRPLANE LINE UP WITH A ROAD LOCATED SOUTH OF AND ALMOST PARALLEL TO THE RUNWAY AT THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. THE AIRPLANE MADE A DESCENT AS IF APPROACHING TO LAND, THEN CLIMBED OUT AND CIRCLED AROUND TO LINE UP WITH THE ROAD AGAIN. WITNESSES STATED THAT THE AIRPLANE ENTERED A STEEP (ESTIMATED 90 DEGREES) LEFT BANK, THEN STALLED AND FELL TO THE GROUND. REVIEW OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL (ATC) TAPES/TRANSCRIPTS REVEALED THAT THE PILOT HAD RECEIVED RADAR ASSISTANCE TO HIS DESTINATION AIRPORT. APPROXIMATELY 6 MINUTES BEFORE HE CRASHED, THE 69 YEAR OLD PILOT STATED 'I THINK I GOT IT NOW...AH, THERE'S A COUPLE OF CARS ON THE RUNWAY...IS THAT THE RUNWAY THERE ON MY LEFT?' ATC REPEATED RUNWAY INFORMATION, INFORMED THE PILOT HE HAD NO CONTROL OVER THE CARS, AND APPROVED A FREQUENCY CHANGE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRCRAFT CONTROL DURING THE TURN FROM BASE TO FINAL APPROACH. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S ABRUPT AIRCRAFT HANDLING DURING THE TURN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO90FA074
- Event ID
- 20001212X24199
- Case number
- BFO90FA074
- 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: 596e66e85a04cf73bcd8438347d97be60b2ccf3b614e7b8d17a2ec60c764c789; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:14:58.487Z.