DFW05FA059 · Beech BE-36
Beech BE-36 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Dallas Executive Airport (RBD) to Brownwood Regional Airport (BWD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05FA059
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech BE-36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft BE-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
- N1750A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Executive Airport (RBD), Dallas, TXTo Brownwood Regional Airport (BWD), Brownwood, 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Guy wire; Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, 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 785-hour instrument rated private pilot was on a night visual approach to the runway without a visual approach glide slope indicator lights when the airplane collided with electrical wires, trees, and the ground . A witness, who was located 2.82 miles south of the accident site, stated that it was dark, the wind was calm, and the sky was clear. He observed the airplane in-flight overhead flying at a "high speed" at an altitude of about 500 feet above the ground (agl). He further reported that he saw the airplane's navigational lights illuminated, and that the airplane's engine sounded "normal" and was "loud." One of the residents went outside, saw flames shooting in the air, and called "911." Local authorities reported that electrical service to nearby residences was interrupted coincident with the accident time. Evidence at the accident site revealed that the airplane initially struck two 40-foot high electrical lines that were perpendicular to the flight path. The electrical lines were found separated and lying on the ground near their support poles. No mechanical anomalies were found that would have contributed to the accident. The NTSB IIC conducted a test to see whether or not the pilot would have been able to see the runway from the point of where the airplane impacted the wires. Several days after the accident, in similar dark night light conditions that prevailed at the time of the accident, a fire ladder truck was utilized to elevate a fireman to the height of the airplane's initial impact with wires. At a height of 40 feet, the runway was found to be clearly visible in the dark night. Several firemen climbed the ladder and stated that when looking straight out toward the runway, they "thought they where about 150-200 feet above the ground." There were no lights between the accident site and the runway, and the terrain sloped down, and then back up to the runway threshold. The sensation was that there appeared to be a "black hole" type of effect when looking straight out from the accident site toward the runway threshold. There was no discernable horizon. A review of the pilot's logbook revealed that the pilot had never been to the accident airport.
Probable cause
The pilots failure to maintain proper altitude and clearance while on final approach to land. Contributing factors were the pilot's lack of familiarity with the geographic area, the dark night light conditions, the non-availability of a visual approach glide slope light system, and spatial disorientation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05FA059
- Event ID
- 20050216X00200
- Case number
- DFW05FA059
- 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: 86416cd44c2ce75c6c9a68d108068b849ea750b52110e376513243235ddf5444; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:08:04.285Z.