CHI03LA123 · Beech 95-C55
Beech 95-C55 · Accident: overrun during landing
From Memorial Field Airport (HOT) to M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA123
- 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 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
- N541U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Memorial Field Airport (HOT), Hot Springs, ARTo M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport (PLK), Point Lookout, MO
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Aircraft control, 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
The aircraft was substantially damaged when it overran the runway after landing and slid down an embankment. The pilot reported he executed an instrument approach to the destination airport. Upon arrival he noted that it had been raining and the runway was wet. He stated that the wind conditions were gusty and the prevailing wind direction reversed to a tailwind as the aircraft touched down. He applied maximum braking, however, "the plane began to hydroplane," according to the pilot. An on-scene inspection determined that the aircraft came to rest off the end of the runway. Approximately 15 feet from the end of the pavement was an embankment, with a drop-off of approximately 75 feet at a slope of approximately 45 degrees (downhill). No skid marks were observed in the area of the departure end of the runway. The pilot reported conditions at the time of the accident as wind from 180 degrees magnetic at 20 knots, gusting to 25 knots. He noted moderate turbulence and no precipitation at the time. Performance data provided by the aircraft manufacturer specified a required landing distance of approximately 1,750 feet at a landing weight of 5,000 lbs. and a 10 knot tailwind. This data is applicable to a dry, paved, level surface, according to the chart. The pilot reported no malfunctions of the aircraft or engines prior to the accident.
Probable cause
Failure of the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft. Contributing factors were the sudden windshift to a tailwind, the wet runway surface, the lack of available runway overrun area and the rocky, descending embankment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA123
- Event ID
- 20030516X00684
- Case number
- CHI03LA123
- 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: 5d5b84f60cecb5584567e2e0c15deebc0f2d7f4a887a3a9eb5b42a27e7259ddb; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:18:50.891Z.