LAX82FA069 · Beech 95-C55
Beech 95-C55 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Safford Regional Airport (SAD) to Twentynine Palms Airport (TNP)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82FA069
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 95-C55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 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
- N200WJ
- Operator
- Tom Bethal Construction Compan
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Safford Regional Airport (SAD), Safford, AZTo Twentynine Palms Airport (TNP), Twentynine Palms, CA
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 handling, improper
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT 1605, THE FLT CALLED BLYTHE FSS STATING HE WAS 25 MI EAST FOR LANDING. WHEN HE HEARD THAT HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES IN ANOTHER ACFT WERE PREPARING TO DEPART BLYTHE FOR TWENTYNINE PALMS, THE PLT CANCELLED HIS LANDING INTENTIONS & STATED THAT THEY WILL BE GOING ON TO TWENTYNINE PALMS ALSO. THE PLTS IN THE OTHER ACFT WERE ON AN IFR FLT PLAN & STATED THAT BECAUSE OF SOLID INSTRUMENT FLIGHT CONDITIONS THEY DID NOT HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEAVE THE ATC FREQ TO COMMUNICATE WITH N200WJ. THE ACFT CRASHED IN DESERT TERRAIN 32 MI EAST OF TWENTYNINE PALMS. A WITNESS STATED THAT VISIBILITY AT THE ACCIDENT SITE AT 1630 WAS LESS THAN 1/4 MI WITH MODERATE RAIN. THE PLT DID NOT HAVE A MULTI-ENGINE OR INSTRUMENT RATING,AND HIS CLASS II MEDICAL CERTIFICATE HAD EXPIRED. THE PAX HAD UNDERGONE DOUBLE BYPASS SURGERY IN 1975 FOR SEVERE OCCLUSIVE CORONARY DISEASE. THE AUTOPSY INDICATED THAT THE BYPASS VESSEL HAD A FRESHLY PROPAGATING CLOT, TOTALLY OCCLUDING THE LUMEN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82FA069
- Event ID
- 20020917X02262
- Case number
- LAX82FA069
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1982-02-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1cdf75f184c99e6adcd95f6f4f9452d043a95e091af790d4937f8b0355c15f0; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:37:28.210Z.