FTW04FA062 · Beech B36TC
Beech B36TC · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to Parker County Airport (WEA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04FA062
- 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 B36TC
- 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
- N7252X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo Parker County Airport (WEA), Parker County, TX
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Destroyed
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 997-hour instrument rated pilot obtained weather briefings for his destination, which reported instrument meteorological conditions, including rain, mist, low visibilities and ceilings. The pilot then departed and flew to his destination, where he was cleared for a VOR/DME-A approach. The airplane flew along the course, and less than a 1/2-mile from the runway, the pilot reported he needed climbing instructions, and initiated a turn toward the north/northeast as instructed by air traffic control. The airplane continued to fly north. It then began a right turn, followed by a left turn back toward the north. One witness heard the airplane fly loudly overhead before it collided with terrain. A second witness reported that the weather was raining, dark, and the fog was bad "you couldn't see anything." At the time of the accident, weather reported 17 miles east of the accident site included 1.5 statute mile visibility, rain, overcast ceilings at 500 feet. Examination of the airplane and engine revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering. Contributing factors were the dark night and rain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04FA062
- Event ID
- 20040120X00075
- Case number
- FTW04FA062
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-01-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8ad0d180c3b0f2e5ce049d7efaf67a2f7bc04e0a0da2151f97a874d36fb8792f; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:37:51.468Z.