BFO89FA069 · Beech B50
Beech B50 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From N80 · Ocean City, MD to Leonardtown, MD
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89FA069
- 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
- 3 · 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 B50
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 50
- 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
- N3688B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From N80 · Ocean City, MDTo Leonardtown, MD
- 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 · 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS ON A VFR FLIGHT, WHEN ACCORDING TO RADAR DATA, THE ACFT ENTERED AN AREA OVER THE CHESAPEAKE BAY REPORTED AS IMC. THE ACFT DESCENDED RAPIDLY AND CRASHED IN A WOODED SWAMP AREA JUST EAST OF THE BAY. THE PLT WAS RETURNING TO THE ARPT, WHERE THE FLIGHT ORIGINATED EARLIER. THE PLT OBTAINED A WX BRIEFING ABOUT 9 HRS EARLIER AND HE WAS ADVISED OF MARGINAL VFR FORECAST UP TO 1800 HRS. THE INVESTIGATION DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE THAT THE PLT RECEIVED A WX BRIEFING BEFORE THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT. THE PLT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED AND HE OBTAINED A MULTI-ENGINE RATING 2 MONTHS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC AND PILOT DISORIENTATION, WHICH RESULTED IN THE LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE, DARKNESS, AND THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89FA069
- Event ID
- 20001213X29042
- Case number
- BFO89FA069
- 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 1989-08-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ca7b464dbce577910a3703d98fcf013dd8bd3230b52af8e6756c559b6fd7a978; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:11:07.632Z.