MIA02FA102 · Beech F33A
Beech F33A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Grand Strand Airport (KCRE) to Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (KIPJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02FA102
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N858KS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Strand Airport (KCRE), North MyrtleBch, SCTo Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (KIPJ), Lincolnton, NC
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › In flight weather avoidance assistance, not obtained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On the day of the accident about 25 minutes before the flight departed the pilot phoned the Raleigh AFSS, and filed his IFR flight plan. During the phone call the briefing specialist (specialist) asked the pilot if he had Convective Sigmet 47E, which was covered the departure airport and was issued approximately 10 minutes earlier. The pilot advised the specialist he had the information about the sigmet, but he did not need any weather services. There was no record that the pilot obtained a preflight weather briefing from the 2 DUAT vendors. Additionally, the departure airport had a computer with access to weather but it does not record who accessed the computer and there was no records found in the wreckage associated with the computer printout. The flight departed, and shortly after takeoff air traffic control communications were transferred from the air traffic control tower to Myrtle Beach Air Traffic Control Tower. The pilot established contact with that facility and the controller questioned why the pilot was deviating without clearance. The controller asked the pilot if he could accept a northerly heading and he advised he could not. The controller vectored the pilot to fly a south-southwesterly heading for traffic which the pilot acknowledged. The controller then advised the pilot that after climbing through 2,600 feet to resume his own navigation. The flight then proceeded on a northwesterly heading where radar plots indicate that at the altitude flown, the flight encountered VIP Level 5 (intense) echoes. The airplane was observed on radar in a right descending turn and crashed into a wooded area. The average rate of descent was calculated to be 4,085 feet-per-minute. A search for the airplane was initiated and it was located the following morning. The airplane was equipped with a stormscope and a moving map display with monochromatic weather depiction. Examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of in-flight break-up. All major structural components were located in the immediate vicinity of the accident site. The flaps were nearly retracted and the landing gear was retracted. Examination of the flight control system for roll, pitch, and yaw revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination of the engine and propeller revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. No specimens were available for a FAA Toxicology screen. Examination of the vacuum pump which was impact damaged revealed the drive coupling was not failed.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to request in-flight weather avoidance assistance and his poor in-flight planning/decision for flying into a Level 5 thunderstorm resulting in an in-flight loss of control, uncontrolled descent, and subsequent in-flight collision with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02FA102
- Event ID
- 20020603X00800
- Case number
- MIA02FA102
- 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: c62e862e6443055d191608318e7b11ca42111523aad570b9f8f70c3cbbb7fe2c; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:00:30.708Z.