Fortunes Unlimited Beech A36 accident
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Alpena County Regional Airport (APN) to Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85LA124
- 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 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
- N1816M
- Operator
- Fortunes Unlimited
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alpena County Regional Airport (APN), Alpena, MITo Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4), Gaylord, MI
- 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PLT, NO ICING PIREPS OR SIGMETS WERE RECEIVED DURING HIS PREFLT WX BRIEFING. HOWEVER, THE NWS BRIEFER STATED THAT HE TOLD HIM OF ONE PIREP & ONE SIGMET CONCERNING ICING THAT AFFECTED HIS PROPOSED ROUTE OF FLT. EN ROUTE TO HIS DESTINATION, THE PLT HAD TO DIVERT DUE TO LOW CEILINGS. HE THEN BEGAN TO NOTICE ICE ON HIS WINGS AS HE FLEW THRU HEAVY RAIN. HE BEGAN AN INSTRUMENT APPROACH WITH A ONE INCH BUILDUP OF ICE. AS THE ICING INCREASED, HE USED FULL POWER TO MAINTAIN A SAFE SPEED MARGIN. OVER THE APPROACH LIGHTS, HE REDUCED POWER SLIGHTLY & LOWERED THE GEAR. THE AIRSPEED DROPPED RAPIDLY & THE LEFT WING STALLED. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT IMPACTED A SNOW BANK APRX 40 FT SHORT OF THE RWY & WAS DAMAGED. AN EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED A ONE INCH THICK LAYER OF MIXED RIME & CLEAR ICE ON THE LEADING EDGES OF THE WINGS & TAIL SURFACES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85LA124
- Event ID
- 20001214X35666
- Case number
- CHI85LA124
- 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 1985-02-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1e89111bc4a3f6bd3d9e27df5c79afc4b334ce2250a24ac73cbcdc74965271ee; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:30:33.240Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N1816M; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.