FTW89GA170 · Beech A35
U.S. Coast Guard Beech A35 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From SDB · San Diego, CA to L66 · Corona, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW89GA170
- 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
- 2 · 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 A35
- 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
- N566B
- Operator
- U.S. Coast Guard
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SDB · San Diego, CATo L66 · Corona, 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 · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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, initiated
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS CLEARED FOR A CLIMB TO CRUISE AND WAS ADVISED TO MAINTAIN VFR. A POST-ACCIDENT WEATHER STUDY INDICATED THAT HE WOULD HAVE BEEN IN IMC CONDITIONS FROM ABOUT 3000 FEET THROUGH 7500 FEET MSL. AFTER INITIATING A CLIMB ON COURSE, THE PILOT LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AT 7100 FEET AND IT ENTERED A RIGHT DESCENDING SPIRAL. DURING THE UNCONTROLLED DESCENT, JUST PRIOR TO GROUND IMPACT, THE OUTER 1/2 OF THE RIGHT WING SEPARATED IN OVERSTRESS. THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT HAD LOGGED A TOTAL OF 5 HOURS OF ACTUAL AND 14 HOURS OF HOOD TIME, THE LAST OF WHICH WAS LOGGED 2-1/2 YEARS BEFORE THE ACCIDENT. THE OPERATOR DID NOT HAVE AN INSTRUMENT OR INADVERTENT IMC TRAINING PROGRAM.
Probable cause
SPATIAL DISORIENTATION OF THE PILOT AFTER HE INITIATED FLIGHT INTO IMC CONDITIONS, AND HIS EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRPLANE DURING THE ATTEMPTED RECOVERY. RELATED FACTORS WERE: THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL AND RECENT INSTRUMENT FLIGHT EXPERIENCE, AND THE OPERATOR'S INADEQUATE RECURRENT TRAINING PROGRAM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW89GA170
- Event ID
- 20001213X29372
- Case number
- FTW89GA170
- 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: 8528f0093fa5cf7f4b2f5816af1b0288b8039874ef02b6eacc942c32aac56490; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:08:52.491Z.