Hotal Alpha Beech E18S accident
Beech E18S · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS) to Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL85LA086
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 E18S
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 18
- 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
- N95HA
- Operator
- Hotal Alpha
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS), Huntington, WVTo Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KY
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Ice/frost removal from aircraft, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
3-4 INCH SNOW ACCUMULATION ON ACFT PRIOR TO FLT. PLT SAID HE SWEPT SNOW OFF EXCEPT AN AREA HE COULD NOT REACH. HEAVY SNOWFALL, WET SNOW REPORTED AS ACFT WAS PREPARED FOR DEPARTURE, DRG RUNUP, TAXI AND TAKEOFF. PLT ADVISED BY TOWER THAT VISIBILITY WAS 1/8 MILE WITH FOG AND SNOW. PUBLISHED TKOF MINIMUM FOR FAR 135 OPN WAS 1/2 MILE. AFTER RIKING SNOWPLOW LOCATED 150 FEET LEFT OF RWY. ACFT CONTINUED OVER EMBANKMENT AND CAME TO REST INVERTED. ICE AND SNOW FND ON UPPER TAIL SURFACE. ELEVATOR TRIM INDICATED FULL NOSE DN. AILERON TRIM IND LEFT BANK. WITNESSES SAID ENGS SOUNDED NORMAL, LDG LIGHTS ON, 600 FEET VISIBILITY FROM POSITION OF SNOWPLOW. PLT SAID 35 INCHES MAP WHEN DESCENDING. MAP INCREASED WITH ADDITIONAL THROTTLE. NO ENGINE ROUGHNESS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL85LA086
- Event ID
- 20001214X35469
- Case number
- ATL85LA086
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1985-02-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c927bc5a850933f11f9d857bdd9f6f545ebab9ad2551da1f4f4c87acbadd6b68; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:31:21.681Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N95HA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.