LAX05FA076 · Beech P35
Beech P35 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Renton Municipal Airport (RNT) to Lampson Field (1O2)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05FA076
- 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 P35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N222V
- Operator
- Robert K. Stimmel · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Renton Municipal Airport (RNT), Renton, WATo Lampson Field (1O2), Lakeport, 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- 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
After encountering severe turbulence during an IFR localizer approach, the pilot was not able to maintain control of the airplane, and impacted trees and mountainous terrain. He was diverting from another airport due to weather and turbulence. The pilot said that he was established on the localizer approach at 4,000 feet msl, when he felt a jolt and heard a loud noise. The jolt he attributed to severe turbulence. He looked into the cabin area to see what had fallen, and when he looked back at the instruments, the airplane was in an unusual attitude, descending at a steep bank angle and a high airspeed. He leveled the wings, reduced the power, and raised the nose of the airplane to stop the descent. The pilot reported that he was attempting to reestablish the flight on the localizer when he saw trees directly in front of him. He raised the nose and impacted the trees. There was a deep low-pressure system with an occluded front off the Pacific coast with an extensive area of clouds and precipitation. Conditions at the destination airport and alternate airport where the pilot diverted to after a missed approach attempt were IFR to MVFR. The alternate airport also reported an overcast ceiling of 2,800 feet agl, with light and continuous rain. Prior to the accident there was a turbulence report of light chop; however, no forecasts for turbulence had been issued. Shortly after the accident an AIRMET was issued, which advised for occasional moderate turbulence below 12,000 feet over the accident area.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during an instrument landing approach, resulting in an in-flight collision with trees and terrain. Factors contributing to the accident were turbulence, and the pilot's diverted attention.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05FA076
- Event ID
- 20050208X00150
- Case number
- LAX05FA076
- 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 2005-01-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 29a78cb24dae30efaae901a2553149982ae2e843db76eaac126d6c4745756fea; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:04:52.724Z.