ATL05FA010 · Beech B-55
Beech B-55 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (KPDK) to Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05FA010
- 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
- 2 · 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 B-55
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft B-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
- N322WW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DeKalb Peachtree Airport (KPDK), Chamblee, GATo Venice Municipal Airport (KVNC), Venice, FL
- 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 · climb to 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Weather condition › Thunderstorm
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 informing him of adverse weather conditions (thunderstorms) in the area of his flight. The pilot departed the airport, and was asked to climb to 5000 feet due to the weather conditions. During the climb out the pilot reported that he was in trouble, and shortly afterward, radio and radar contact was lost. The airplane was seen spinning out of the clouds in a flat attitude. The airplane collided with ground and a post crash fire ensued. Post accident examination of the airplane revealed no mechanical or flight control problems. A Convective SIGMET (43E) issued at 0855 for an area approximately 15 miles northwest of the accident location. The Convective SIGMET, which was valid until 1055, noted an area of severe thunderstorms moving from 270-degrees at 20 knots, with tops to 45,000 feet. The SIGMET also indicated that the southern portion of this complex was moving from 300-degrees at 25 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot initiated flight into known adverse weather conditions (thunderstorms), which resulted in a loss of control, and subsequent in-flight collision with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05FA010
- Event ID
- 20041101X01728
- Case number
- ATL05FA010
- 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: f6fd66d5d0cb0caac40f85d10ac19cb3204630aa0c8d0da04e6ba7c98b99ccee; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:18:16.131Z.