CHI90LA024 · Beech A36
Dynamation Beech A36 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90LA024
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N951V
- Operator
- Dynamation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo 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
- Approach
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING ARRIVAL AT NGT, THE PLT WAS CLRD FOR AN NDB RWY 5 APCH. THE NDB WAS LOCATED AT THE ARPT, JUST SW OF THE RWY. THE PLT STATED THAT HE 'COMPLETED (THE) NDB APPROACH, WHICH FAILED AT MINIMUMS. ENTERED CLEAR AIR ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER ADF REVERSAL . . .' HE SAID HE THEN MADE A 180 DEG REVERSAL (LEFT TURN) AND MANEUVERED TO GET REESTABLISHED ON THE NDB COURSE ABT 3.9 MI FM THE ARPT, BUT HE COULD NOT RECALL ANYTHING BEYOND THAT POINT. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD DSCNDD & CRASHED IN AN OPEN FIELD IN THAT AREA. MDA FOR THE APCH WAS 1540 FT. THE ARPT ELEV WAS 995 FT. THE ARPT MANAGER ESTIMATED THE CEILING AT THE ARPT WAS BELOW MINIMUMS. NO PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT OR NDB WAS FOUND.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO FOLLOW IFR PROCEDURES AND MAINTAIN THE MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE (MDA). FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS AND ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90LA024
- Event ID
- 20001213X29761
- Case number
- CHI90LA024
- 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 1989-11-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b3f4b6ba1d6abe97f13f35235eecf65395d7259902fde2d2bc23fd6d8fd3caa5; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:00:08.524Z.