ATL89FA165 · Beech B-60
Beech B-60 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 0A6 · Gastonia, NC to Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89FA165
- 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 B-60
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft B-60
- 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
- N78TW
- Operator
- Maurice J. Walsh, III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 0A6 · Gastonia, NCTo Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FL
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER OBTAINING A WEATHER BRIEFING IN WHICH HE WAS INFORMED OF THUNDERSTORMS AND CURRENT SIGMETS FOR HIS INTENDED ROUTE OF FLIGHT, THE PILOT ELECTED TO DEPART HIS HOME AIRPORT ON A PERSONAL FLIGHT. AT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE, WITNESSES INDICATED THE PRESENCE OF THUNDERSTORMS ADJACENT TO THE AIRPORT. AFTER TRYING TO OBTAIN HIS IFR CLEARANCE FROM CHARLOTTE, THE PILOT WAS ISSUED HIS IFR CLEARANCE WHEN APPROACHING COLUMBIA, SC. THE PILOT HAD DEVIATED AROUND AT LEAST ONE THUNDERSTORM WHILE APPROACHING COLUMBIA. THE PILOT HAD BEEN CLEARED TO CLIMB TO HIS REQUESTED ALTITUDE OF 17,000 FEET AND HAD REACHED 16,400 WHEN THE RADAR RETURN WAS OBSERVED TO INDICATE A DESCENT AND THEN WAS LOST. WITNESSES ON THE GROUND REPORTED SEEING THE AIRPLANE EXIT THE CLOUDS IN FLAMES. THE EVIDENCE INDICATED THAT THE HORIZONTAL TAIL HAD SEPARATED FOLLOWED BY THE WINGS AND OTHER COMPONENTS OF THE AIRPLANE. NO EVIDENCE OF SEPARATION DUE TO STRUCTURAL WEAKENING FROM HEATING WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT EXERCISED QUESTIONABLE JUDGEMENT IN INITIATING A FLIGHT INTO AN AREA OF KNOWN THUNDERSTORMS. FURTHER, EITHER DELIBERATELY OR INADVERTANTLY ENTERED A THUNDERSTORM AND OVERSTRESSED THE AIRFRAME STRUCTURE RESULTING IN AN INFLIGHT SEPARATION OF THE AERODYNAMIC SURFACES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89FA165
- Event ID
- 20001213X28485
- Case number
- ATL89FA165
- 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: 6c7904eefe9a2cf467787da6e6c664cadada31227a645cd74cec7099a0a29057; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:16:29.476Z.