DEN88FA030 · Beech J35
Beech J35 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV) to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA030
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech J35
- 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
- N2EE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reid-Hillview Airport of Santa Clara County (RHV), San Jose, CATo Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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 › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE LAST COMM WITH THE FLT WAS WHEN THE PLT CONTACTED ELKO RADIO AND REQUESTED THE SALT LAKE CITY WX. HE REPORTED THAT HE WAS AT 11500 FT AND VFR ON TOP. THE SPECIALIST ON DUTY WAS UNABLE TO PROVIDE THE WX INFO DUE TO A COMPUTER SYS OUTAGE BUT RECOMMENDED THAT THE PLT CTC CEDAR CITY FLT WATCH FOR WX INFO. NO REC OF ANY FURTHER CONTACTS BY THE PLT COULD BE FOUND. APPROX 1 HR LATER, A WITNESS RPTD SEEING ACFT LIGHTS AT A LOW ALTITUDE HEADING IN A SOUTHERLY DIRECTION, NEAR THE CRASH SITE. THE WITNESS STATED THAT THE WX AT THE TIME WAS SNOW AND ICY CONDITIONS AND THE STATE HWY PATROL CONFIRMED THAT BLIZZARD CONDITIONS EXISTED IN THE AREA. EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE ACFT DESCENDED INTO THE DESERT IN A SLIGHT NOSE DOWN, STEEP RIGHT WING DOWN ATTITUDE ON A TRACK OF 170 DEGREES. NO EVIDENCE OF MECH FAILURE/MALF OF THE ACFT OR ITS ENG WAS FOUND. THE PLT HAD A PRIOR HISTORY OF HYPOXIC PROBLEMS. THE ALT AT WHICH HE LAST REPORTED WAS IN THE AVERAGE SUB-HYPOXIC RANGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA030
- Event ID
- 20001213X32511
- Case number
- DEN88FA030
- 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 1987-11-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 56e92cbc1683950ca466041d8f606e89ef25854c502a9368382c55aa51e2252c; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:53:44.712Z.