LAX86FA140 · Beech A36TC
Beech A36TC · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI) to Oxnard Airport (OXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86FA140
- 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 A36TC
- 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
- N333AU
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From King County International Airport - Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WATo Oxnard Airport (OXR), Oxnard, 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 › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Descent, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE WX DETERIORATED WHILE THE ACFT WAS CRUISING IN IMC AT 17,000 FT. MODERATE TURBULENCE & ICING CONDITIONS IN THE LAYERED CLOUDS WERE REPORTED BY OTHER NEARBY FLYING ACFT. THE PLT INFORMED ARTCC THAT HE 'LOST THE AUTOPILOT,' & THE ACFT'S COURSE BEGAN CHANGING RADICALLY. A GROUND BASED WITNESS DESCRIBED THE APPROACHING ACFT'S NOISE AS BEING SIMILAR TO THE 'SCREAMING' PRODUCED BY AN ACFT IN A POWER DIVE. THE SURFACE VISIBILITY WAS RESTRICTED BY SNOW TO BETWEEN 200 FT - 1/4 MI. CONTROL OF THE ACFT WAS LOST AND AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP OCCURRED. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND DISTRIBUTED OVER A 1/8 BY 3/4 MILE AREA. THE PRIMARY AIRFRAME FAILURE OCCURRED ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE WING SPAR CARRY THROUGH STRUCTURE. THE STRUCTURE BROKE IN AN UPWARD (POSITIVE) DIRECTION. NO EVIDENCE FOR THE REPORTED LOSS OF THE AUTOPILOT OR WITH THE RELATED FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM WAS FOUND. THE ACFT WAS NEITHER CERTIFICATED NOT EQUIPPED FOR FLIGHT INTO ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86FA140
- Event ID
- 20001213X33081
- Case number
- LAX86FA140
- 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: f3fbc5aaf124b168ef62669ff79b5f8ec2b6677d09ddff68b2eded52f80ae5b7; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:38:32.550Z.