CHI01FA080 · Beech 58
Beech 58 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Lincoln Airport (LNK) to Miller Field (VTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01FA080
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N52BA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincoln Airport (LNK), Lincoln, NETo Miller Field (VTN), Valentine, NE
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
At 0705 CST, while attempting an approach to runway 17 at Ainsworth, Nebraska, the airplane impacted a frozen cornfield at a shallow angle on a heading of 280 degrees and skidded to a stop, 3,070 feet north-northeast of the approach end of runway 17. Much of the airplane was consumed by postimpact fire. The airplane departed Lincoln, Nebraska about 0545. The pilot first reported the airplane was picking up light, mixed ice at 0612. The pilot reported that he continued to pick up ice at 0629, 0632, and 0637. At 0643, he reported "picking up lots of ice right now." At 0658, he reported moderate mixed icing and freezing rain. Emergency responders reported the weather conditions on the ground included freezing rain and ice, and that the roads were covered with 1/4 inch of ice. Inspection of the airplane revealed no preexisting anomalies. The airplane was equipped with de-ice boots on the wings and horizontal stabilizer, and anti-icing alcohol for the propeller and windshield. The Pilot Operation Handbook limitation section contained the following warning: "Ice protection equipment which may be installed on this airplane has not been demonstrated to meet requirements for flight into known icing conditions."
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight decision to continue flight into known adverse weather. A factor was the icing conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01FA080
- Event ID
- 20010214X00451
- Case number
- CHI01FA080
- 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, coordinates. 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: c0a33822f15deed74fab02374aa75c86b87c7e797b8ff36dfe4d05afe9a8ce1c; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:10:49.793Z.