BFO89LA042 · Beech T-34B
US Navy Beech T-34B · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Norfolk Naval Station (Chambers Field) (NGU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89LA042
- 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
- 0 · 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 T-34B
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft T-34
- 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
- N91072
- Operator
- U.S. Navy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norfolk Naval Station (Chambers Field) (NGU), Norfolk, VATo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Dual student › Airspeed, not obtained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
- Stall › Inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CFI AND STUDENT WERE PERFORMING A SIMULATED SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF FROM A PAVED RWY WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. THE CFI STATED THAT FULL PWR WAS APPLIED WITH 75 PERCENT FLAPS AND FULL BACK STICK WAS USED. ONCE AIRBORNE, BACK PRESSURE WAS RELEASED AND THE ACFT SETTLED TO THE RWY. BACK PRESSURE WAS AGAIN APPLIED AND THE ACFT BECAME AIRBORNE. ONCE AGAIN, BACK PRESSURE WAS RELEASED AND THE ACFT SETTLED TOWARD THE RWY. TO PREVENT THE ACFT FROM CONTACTING THE RWY, THE CFI APPLIED BACK PRESSURE AND THE ACFT ENTERED WHAT HE DESCRIBED AS A LEFT YAWING TURN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CONTACTED THE TERRAIN IN A LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE AND SKIDDED TO A STOP OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RWY. THE CFI REPORTED THE REAR COCKPIT STALL WARNING WAS INOP AND THE INTERCOMM SYSTEM HAD AN INTERMITTENT PROBLEM.
Probable cause
AN INADVERTENT STALL DUE TO FAILURE OF THE STUDENT PILOT TO OBTAIN ADEQUATE FLYING SPEED AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI). THE INOPERATIVE STALL WARNING SYSTEM WAS CONSIDERED TO BE A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR. THE INTERMITTENT INTERCOMM PROBLEM WAS A POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89LA042
- Event ID
- 20001213X28504
- Case number
- BFO89LA042
- 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: 21f455239e2f3f41f6ac5c440ccd38c9551cc0c3058ef80a4cd5de60298c2c9a; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:32:20.523Z.