LAX90FA010 · Beech V35
Beech V35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90FA010
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech V35
- 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
- N288BH
- Operator
- Hendrick, William G · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT DID NOT FILE A FLIGHT PLAN FOR HIS FLIGHT ACROSS MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. AFTER TAKEOFF, HE CLIMBED UNDER AN OVERCAST SKY TOWARD A MOUNTAIN PASS. THERE WERE NO FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE PILOT AFTER HE ACKNOWLEDGED THAT RADAR SERVICE WAS TERMINATED. THE PILOT'S FAMILY REPORTED HIM MISSING LATE IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE DAY OF HIS DEPARTURE. LOW CEILINGS AND VISIBILITIES EXISTED THROUGHOUT THE DAY AND CONTINUED UNITL THE NEXT AFTERNOON. THE AIRCRAFT WRECKAGE WAS FOUND ON A MOUNTAIN TOP BY SEARCH PERSONNEL ON THE DAY AFTER THE AIRCRAFT WAS REPORTED MISSING. IMPACT OCCURRED AT 2,200 FEET MSL. THE PILOT OF ANOTHER AIRCRAFT REPORTED THE CEILING IN THE AREA WAS 1,600 FEET WITH THE SKY OBSCURED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT VISUAL FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AT AN ALTITUDE THAT WOULD NOT PROVIDE TERRAIN CLEARANCE. THE WEATHER CONDITION WAS A RELATED FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90FA010
- Event ID
- 20001213X29626
- Case number
- LAX90FA010
- 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: 6955b4b21a38742f3c3e062c1741337a9c223e3265eee73bead6dfd3964a4f67; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:06:35.098Z.