FTW02FA087 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Wiley Post Airport (PWA) to Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02FA087
- 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
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
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
- N7236L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OKTo Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), Austin, TX
- 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 missed 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
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instrument-rated private pilot received a preflight weather briefing from a flight service station, and was informed of light turbulence and a forecast of marginal VFR conditions becoming VFR at the destination airport near the estimated time of arrival. The flight departed and flew to the destination airport. Prior to beginning an ILS approach, the pilot was informed of IFR weather conditions, which consisted of a ceiling and visibility below the minimum prescribed altitudes for the approach. The pilot executed a stable ILS approach to the runway and, according to radar data, declared a missed approach at the decision height. The pilot was issued missed approach instructions at three separate times, and acknowledged the first two sets of instructions; however, did not respond to the final instruction to switch communication frequencies. Subsequently, the airplane was located on the airport property. Witness marks at the accident site and airplane crush angles were consistent with the airplane stalling prior to impacting the ground, and then a fire erupting. Examination of the airframe and engine, and their logbooks, did not reveal any pre-existing anomalies. Additionally, toxicological test results for the pilot revealed unquantified levels of dyphenhydramine (a sedating antihistamine).
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed, resulting in a stall. Contributing factors were the low ceiling, fog, and the unforecast weather conditions..
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02FA087
- Event ID
- 20020305X00304
- Case number
- FTW02FA087
- 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: c1417c8ed572cbf574156d6c4403c70ecae0df43e5a1b449f04643137dd4587a; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:09:36.631Z.