SEA85LA095 · Beech 36
Beech 36 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to Elko Regional Airport (EKO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA85LA095
- 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
- 2 · 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 36
- 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
- N7514N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo Elko Regional Airport (EKO), Elko, NV
- 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 · descent
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ELKO DME (LOCATED AT THE ARPT, USED FOR THE LDA/DME APCH, 108.5 MHZ) WAS INOP. DRG ARRIVAL, THE PLT EXPRESSED MISTRUST OF HIS DME. APRX 24 MI SSE OF BULLION (BQU) VOR, ARTCC CONTROLLER (CTLR) CLRD N7514N FOR 'THE APCH TO THE ELKO ARPT.' SECONDS LATER, THE PLT SAID HE WAS IN A DWNDFT, DIDN'T HAVE DME TO THE ELKO VOR & ASKED IF HE WAS CLR OF THE RUBY MTNS. CTLR ADVISED, THE ACFT WAS STILL 24 MI SOUTH (WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN OVR MTNS). APRX 90 SEC LATER, THE CTLR ADVISED DME WAS OUT OF SVC & THE PLT WAS CLRD FOR VOR-A APCH. PLT ACKNOWLEDGED. AT THAT TIME, THE ACFT TURNED SOUTH W/O CLNC, THEN CONTD TURNING BACK NORTH. CTLR TRIED TO CONTACT THE PLT ABOUT THE DEVIATION, BUT THE PLT HAD CHANGED TO FSS FREQ W/O CLNC. THE ARTCC CTLR NOTED DSCNDG FLT OVR MOUTAINOUS TERRAIN, CONTACTED THE FSS & LEARNED THE PLT WAS ON THE FSS FREQ. HE RELAYED AN ADVISORY OF THE ACFT'S PSN, BUT DID NOT GIVE SPECIFIC INSTNS FOR IMMEDIATE CLIMB. ACFT CRASHED IN MTNS, ELEV 10,200', APRX 19 MI SSE OF THE ARPT. MTNS WERE OBSCD BY CLDS. PLT HAD RECD AN INSTRUMENT RATING ON 3/13/85.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA85LA095
- Event ID
- 20001214X36327
- Case number
- SEA85LA095
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1985-04-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a3bee60eeeb5b472616dd02e52d2bad722e17c3cf45c90c6828f7e999c5d9937; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:03:16.593Z.