ATL04FA159 · Beech 36TC
Beech 36TC · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) to Lawrenceville Vincennes International Airport (LWV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04FA159
- 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
- 4 · 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 36TC
- 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
- N1525M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FLTo Lawrenceville Vincennes International Airport (LWV), Lawrenceville, IL
- 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
- 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
- Airframe › Failure, total
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
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 received a weather briefing at about 1305. The briefer advised him of convective activity from Sarasota, Florida extending up to Georgia moving east northeast at 30 knots with tops to Flight Level (FL) 450. The briefer also stated thunderstorms were east, west and south of Columbus, Georgia moving east at 25-35 knots. During the course of the flight. Air Traffic Control (ATC) issued several broadcast messages regarding convective SIGMET activity. At about 1649, the pilot advised the Jacksonville Center that he was level at 10,000 feet. At about 1656, the controller asked the pilot if he had a storm scope or weather radar onboard, which the pilot replied "I have a storm scope." The controller advised the pilot that there was a significant cell 10 miles in front of him extending 30 miles. The pilot advised that he was looking and asked. "what does the weather look like if we turned about heading 336 now." The controller stated that the cell extended all the way from Albany towards Ashburn airport. That it was a solid cell 20 miles wide with Level 4 and 5 thunderstorms. The pilot asked if he could have a suggested heading. The controller advised that there were no openings. The pilot then asked how far was the cell and the controller replied 5 miles and suggested. "If you wanted to go eastbound that's the clearest route due east about 45 miles than northbound that's the clearest route. "The pilot replied, "we'll try that." There was no further transmissions from the pilot. At 1708, radar contact was lost with the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate in-flight planning/decision resulting in flight into thunderstorms resulting in an in-flight breakup of the airframe.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04FA159
- Event ID
- 20040723X01050
- Case number
- ATL04FA159
- 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: 0b750bcb2bf8e780ff53a44edb871c257c4c3cd3b709f1b5e8e991c47d2cdc2e; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:24:52.086Z.