DEN01FA033 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Tulsa International Airport (TUL) to Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01FA033
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech V35B
- 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
- N2174L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa International Airport (TUL), Tulsa, OKTo Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)
- 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The tower cleared the pilot to land on runway 03. However, the pilot lined up for a landing on runway 35. The tower informed the pilot. The pilot executed a steep left bank maneuver in an attempt to line up on runway 03. The airplane then dived to the ground in a nose low attitude impacting near the approach end of runway 03. The airplane was destroyed. Air Traffic Control radar showed the airplane approach the airport from the east. At 1556:05, radar data showed the airplane begin a right turn to a heading of 314 degrees. The airplane was at an altitude of 6,000 feet mean sea level (msl) and flying at an airspeed of 122 knots. At 1556:57, radar data showed the airplane make an abrupt left turn to 294 degrees. The airplane's altitude was at 5,700 feet msl and its airspeed was 90 knots. Over the next 28 seconds, the airplane continued its turn until rolling out on a 225 degree heading. At 1557:34, radar data showed the airplane in an abrupt right turn to 000 degrees. Approximately 4 seconds later, the airplane was in a left turn on a heading of 314 degrees. The left turn continued until radar contact was lost at 1557:48. An examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies. Examination of the pilot's records showed he logged 4.7 hours in the previous 90 days. Approximately 3.5 of those hours were logged the day of the accident.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control and the inadvertent stall. Factors contributing to the accident were the pilot's improper in-flight planning, his lack of recent flying experience, and the abrupt maneuver to correct to the proper runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01FA033
- Event ID
- 20010105X00029
- Case number
- DEN01FA033
- 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: 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: 4a68aad1bf12fe20439011aa2b361f9731d02106997aeca303c89c5e7c45a864; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:43:12.816Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The airplane then dived to the ground in a nose low attitude impacting near the approach end of runway 03. The airplane was destroyed."