LAX03LA163 · Beech 58
Beech 58 · Accident: hard landing
From Catalina Airport (AVX) to Big Bear City Airport (L35)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA163
- 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 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N18142
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Catalina Airport (AVX), Avalon, CATo Big Bear City Airport (L35), Big Bear City, 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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, excessive
- Pilot in command › Flare, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage during a hard landing. A witness to the accident stated that the airplane was approaching "too hot" and touched down three separate times due to its high approach speed. On the third touchdown, the airplane's landing gear collapsed and the airplane slid to a stop. Photographs of the runway surface displayed a noticeable crack running the length of the runway, left of the centerline. Significant markings were located approximately midpoint down the runway. Two parallel black skid marks with irregular zigzag patterns, exhibiting heavy tread markings, were also visible left of the centerline. These skid marks were about 6 feet apart and parallel to the runway centerline. The left skid mark was located about 6 inches left of the crack. The right skid mark was located about 5 feet to the right of the crack. There were two sets of six thin scrape marks dimensionally similar to propeller slashes in the runway surface located adjacent to each of the two black skid marks. There was approximately 12 inches in between each of the scrape marks, which were perpendicular to the runway centerline. One set of scrape marks was on the left side of the left skid mark. The second set of scrape marks was on the right side of the right skid mark. A third mark, located midpoint in between the two black skid marks, consisted of a skid mark, which was nearly covered by a white paint transfer. This mark ran parallel to the runway centerline. All three skid marks faded as they continued down the length of the runway. The accident aircraft was painted white. The mechanic who examined the airplane after the accident stated that there was no evidence of a mechanical gear failure. Flight control and flap continuity were also checked with no anomalies noted. The flaps were examined, and found to be in the up position, consistent with the flap selector position. The flaps were not damaged. The mechanic noted that the flaps are normally damaged if they are in the down position and the gear collapses. The pilot told the mechanic that he was not sure if he had put the flaps down during the approach.
Probable cause
The pilot's excessive approach speed and misjudged landing flare, which resulted in a hard landing and collapse of the landing gear. A factor in the accident was the pilot's failure to use flaps.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA163
- Event ID
- 20030605X00806
- Case number
- LAX03LA163
- 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: 8b4692d3e049d0be2aa53f99cb5d30f095452ba704b6eb4fe6026e7071b778e7; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:13:27.099Z.