LAX90FA019 · Beech 77
Great Bend Air Beech 77 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90FA019
- 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 77
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 77
- 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
- N3731X
- Operator
- Great Bend Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo 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
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS FLYING A MORNING TRAFFIC WATCH ALONG A HIGHWAY IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN, JUST EAST OF HONOLULU. THE MOUNTAIN TOPS WERE OBSCURED BY CLOUDS. THE NEXT TRAFFIC REPORT WAS DUE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF A RIDGE THRU WHICH THE HIGHWAY PASSED VIA A TUNNEL. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED ABOUT 1/2 MI WEST OF THE SOUTH ENTRANCE OF THE TUNNEL. IMPACT OCCURRED BELOW A RIDGE AT AN ELEVATION OF ABOUT 2000 FT. THIS WAS ABOVE THE LOWEST ELEVATION OF A PASS THAT CROSSED THE RIDGE NEAR THAT POINT. GROUND SCARS AT THE CRASH SITE WERE INDICATIVE OF A WINGS LEVEL IMPACT. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS EVIDENT.
Probable cause
VFR FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE AND CLEARANCE FROM MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THE ADVERSE WEATHER AND TERRAIN CONDITIONS WERE RELATED FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90FA019
- Event ID
- 20001213X29629
- Case number
- LAX90FA019
- 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: 851bc41931f93d39b110a58af67dcacc3b950d6df6c7e1653d072d4a47cebfe2; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:05:55.848Z.