ATL84AA053 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX) to Richard B Russell Airport (RMG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84AA053
- 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
- 6 · 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
- Unknown
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
- N3801N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX), Knoxville, TNTo Richard B Russell Airport (RMG), Rome, GA
- 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
- Approach · IFR final 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 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, not followed
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, below
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES AND HIGHER TERRAIN WHICH WAS ADJACENT TO THE VOR APPROACH PATH. THE WEATHER WAS DESCRIBED BY WITNESSES AS STORMY WITH HEAVY RAINS AND HIGH WINDS. SOME OF THE OCCUPANTS OF THE ACCIDENT ACFT WERE AIRSICK ACCORDING TO THE PLTS RADIO REPORT. THE ACFT WAS CLEARED FOR THE VOR APPROACH. HE WAS TOLD TO MAINTAIN 4000 FT MSL UNTILINBOUND ON TRACK AND THEN DESCEND TO 3200 FT. THE PLT ACKNOWLEDGED. LATER THE PLT REPORTED THE INITIAL APPROACH FIX. ABOUT ONE MINUTE LATER APPROACH LOST RADAR CONTACT. WHEN LAST IN RADAR CONTACT HE WAS OUT OF 2700 FT AND 'RIGHT ON THE APPROACH'. THE ACFT HIT THE WEST SLOPE OF ST. JOHN'S MT AT ABOUT 1560 FT MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84AA053
- Event ID
- 20001214X44980
- Case number
- ATL84AA053
- 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 1983-11-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3c221dc0b84f037e0d4939ca1cb21f8696a21c14055edc47a796ae76562ca1ef; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:47:50.881Z.