MIA02FA039 · Beech BE-55-T42A
Beech BE-55-T42A · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Virginia Highlands Airport (VJI) to Johnson City Airport (0A4)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02FA039
- 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
- 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 BE-55-T42A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-55
- 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
- N50KF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Virginia Highlands Airport (VJI), Abington, VATo Johnson City Airport (0A4), Johnson City, TN
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to eyewitnesses, the Beech Baron was seen flying in formation, with a Cessna 210 at a low altitude, flying below treetop height and fast. As the formation neared the airport, the Beech closed in on the Cessna as the number two position in a right echelon. The pilot of the lead aircraft estimated that their airspeed at the time he executed his pitch-up was about 190 knots. The flight of two appeared to be flying into the "break," military style, for landings on runway 22. About the mid-point of the 3,000 foot runway, the lead aircraft executed an abrupt pitch up and left bank, and the Beech continued forward, colliding with a tree at the departure end of the runway. Some eyewitnesses stated the Beech went inverted following tree strike. The Beech continued airborne until impacting the rear portion of the roof of a two story manufacturing plant and came to rest about 202 feet beyond the building into a tree and vine thicket, and was consumed by post crash fire. No discrepancies were found with the airframe or the engine.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude clearance above the tree resulting in a collision with the tree, subsequent collision with a building, and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02FA039
- Event ID
- 20011210X02373
- Case number
- MIA02FA039
- 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: 0d45f45298129b0eb707ee87e7326ed9391b303ac4e2ce366b3b95800e218408; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:16:38.801Z.