FTW88FA032 · Beech H35
Beech H35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Charles R Johnson Airport (T05) to F54 · Arlington, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW88FA032
- 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
- 3 · 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 H35
- 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
- N5568D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charles R Johnson Airport (T05), PORT MANSFIELD, TXTo F54 · Arlington, TX
- 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 · climb to 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RCVD SVRL WX BRIEFINGS BFR TKOF & WAS ADZD OF CONVECTIVE ACTIVITY ALONG THE INITIAL ROUTE OF FLT NORTH OF THE ARPT. THE PLANNED DEP ROUTE WAS TWD THE WX. WHILE DISCUSSING ALTN ROUTING POSSIBILITIES, THE PLT INDCD HE WOULD ASK ATC FOR DEVIATION ARND THE WX AFTER TKOF. AFTER TKOF, HE CTCD HOUSTON ARTCC & RPRTD CLMBG TO 4000'. THE CTLR (WHO HAD JUST COME ON DUTY) WASN'T EXPECTING THE ACFT & DIDN'T SEE A FLT PROGRESS SLIP FOR N5568D. A DISCUSSION FLWD CONCERNING THE STATUS OF THE FLT PLAN WITH THE CTLR FINALLY CLRG N5568D TO MAINT 4000'. SOON THEREAFTER, RADIO CTC WAS LOST & THE ACFT CRASHED IN WATER (LAGUNA MADRE) ABT 8 MI NORTH OF THE ARPT IN AN AREA OF TSTMS & LOW OVC. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THE ACFT CRASHED IN ABOUT A 10 DEG NOSE DWN ATTITUDE. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FND. THE RELIEVED ARTCC CTLR SAID HE ADZD THE RELIEVING CTLR THAT N5568D HAD A CLNC, BUT HADN'T RPRTD AIRBORNE. THE RELIEVING CTLR SAID HIS VIEW OF THE FLT PROGRESS SLIP WAS BLOCKED & HE DIDN'T SEE THE SLIP UNTIL 1 MIN LTR. THE PLT HADN'T LOGGED ANY RECENT INST APCHS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW88FA032
- Event ID
- 20001213X32527
- Case number
- FTW88FA032
- 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: 0df989ec0c590e25f2ff720f7dd9117d7b7c472978aa1f39844539a8864fad60; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:53:47.993Z.