FTW86MA010 · Beech V35
Beech V35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 6S5 · Hamilton, MT to Broadus Airport (BDX)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86MA010
- 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 V35
- 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
- N8475H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6S5 · Hamilton, MTTo Broadus Airport (BDX), Broadus, MT
- 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG A PREFLT WX BRIEFING, THE PLT WAS ADVISED THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED DUE TO FORECAST FRONTAL ACTIVITY MOVING SOUTHBOUND ALONG HIS ROUTE. SEVERE TURBULENCE & ICING HAD BEEN REPORTED JUST TO THE NORTH OF HIS COURSE. HE FILED A VFR FLT PLAN & TOOK OFF AT 0730. AT 0931, THE PLT CONTACTED ARTCC. HE SAID HE WOULD BE UNABLE TO CONTINUE VFR TO HIS DESTN &REQUESTED VECTORS TO BILLINGS, MT, TO AWAIT WX IMPROVEMENT. AT 0935, BEFORE VECTORS WERE ISSUED, THE PLT CANCELED HIS REQUEST SAYING HE WOULD NOT NEED THE VECTORS AS THERE WERE 'BIG HOLES . . . BELOW US NOW.' SHORTLY THEREAFTER, RADIO & RADAR CONTACT WERE LOST. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED, BUT THE ACFT WAS NOT LOCATED UNTIL 10 DAYS LATER. IT HAD CRASHED INTO THE WALL OF A LARGE CANYON IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN NEAR THE POINT WHERE RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. A PLT, WHO WAS DRIVING IN THE AREA, REPORTED THE SKY WAS OBSCURED WITH 1/4 MI VIS, BUT FURTHER SOUTH, THE WX IMPROVED TO UNLIMITED VIS & A CEILING OF 2000 TO 3000'. THE PLT'S LOG WAS NOT FND, BUT ON 1/26/84, HE RPRTD A TOTAL TIME OF 400 HRS ON AN APPLICATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86MA010
- Event ID
- 20001214X38039
- Case number
- FTW86MA010
- 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: c5fdce39c9a95cd6354ffee445850b4713c8b89f54671382d3bec82e4321d2f2; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:49:24.284Z.