DEN03LA056 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN) to Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN03LA056
- 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
- 0 · 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 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
- N435P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN), Farmington, NMTo Four Corners Regional Airport (FMN), Farmington, NM
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › Climb, not attained
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot made a full-stop soft field landing on runway 07. As he taxied back, he decided to practice a soft field takeoff. After lowering the flaps to 12 degrees, he applied full power and lifted off. He applied slight right rudder to maintain the proper track and lowered the nose to see the runway and to "get into ground effect." The airplane began drifting to the left and he applied more right rudder. The airplane "appeared to lose lift." As the pilot tried to return the airplane to the runway centerline, he "felt a hit on the bottom of the plane" as it touched down in the dirt. The pilot said he was able to bring the airplane to a halt. He said it "steered OK," so he taxied it back to the ramp, but "felt obvious damage somewhere to the plane." Examination disclosed holes in the horizontal stabilizer and left elevator and a cracked trim tab. The aft spar of the horizontal stabilizer was also bent.The left landing gear door and left flap were destroyed and a wing rib was bent. The bottom of the fuselage, aft of the wing flap, was dented and the bulkhead was buckled. Winds before and after the accident were from 090 and 100 degrees at 6 and 5 knots, respectively.
Probable cause
the pilot's premature liftoff resulting in his failure to attain airspeed and achieve takeoff climb. Contributing factors were the runway light and taxiway sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN03LA056
- Event ID
- 20030403X00428
- Case number
- DEN03LA056
- 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: 3d4128b7924a219ea8b887b3df28836d81a8ccc39f3525acee76a437441b8386; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:28:58.125Z.