MIA85FA159 · Beech C35
Beech C35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From X16 to Page Field (FMY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA85FA159
- 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
- 4 · 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 C35
- 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
- N1967D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From X16To Page Field (FMY), FT. MYERS, FL
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES OBSERVED THE ACFT TAKEOFF ON RWY 36 IN FOGGY CONDITIONS. THEY REPORTED THAT DURING THE INITIAL CLIMB AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE ACFT PITCHED UP & ROLLED INTO A STEEP LEFT BANK, THEN ENTERED A DESCENT & CRASHED ON AN APRX HEADING OF 060 DEG. IMPACT OCCURRED ABOUT 1/2 MI NNW FROM THE CENTER OF THE ARPT (NEAR THE DEPARTURE END OF RWY 36). NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND DURING THE INVESTIGATION. ABOUT 8 MI WEST AT TAMPA, FL, THE 0750 WX WAS IN PART: 25,000 FT SCATTERED, VISIBILITY 1-1/2 MI WITH FOG. WITNESSES AT THE ACCIDENT SITE ESTIMATED THE VISIBILITY WAS 1/2 MI WITH FOG. THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT HAD LOGGED ONLY 4.3 HRS OF HOODED FLT TIME & NO ACTUAL INSTRUMENT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA85FA159
- Event ID
- 20001214X36256
- Case number
- MIA85FA159
- 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: 14e00d36e7921670241acd41f2640d7bbf365d99e3c9743c99df5da4ce23ed64; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:02:48.329Z.