SEA05FA075 · Raytheon Bonanza
Raytheon Bonanza · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Tampa International Airport (TPA) to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05FA075
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Raytheon Bonanza
- Aircraft type
- Raytheon BONANZA
- 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
- N448T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, FLTo Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, 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 · 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
- 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
Approximately one hour after takeoff, while in cruise flight at approximately 4,500 feet MSL, radar and radio communications with the pilot/aircraft were lost. The pilot was on the return leg of a round-robin flight that originated earlier that day. Radar information indicated the airplane started a descending right turn shortly before it disappeared from radar coverage. The airplane wreckage was later located near the general vicinity of the last radar return. Airman records indicated that the pilot was issued a private pilot certificate approximately three months prior to the accident. The pilot did not hold an instrument rating. The end of civil twilight was at approximately six minutes after the time of the accident. No evidence was found to indicate a pre-impact mechanical malfunction or irregularity with the airplane that may have contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while in cruise flight. Factors include night conditions and flat featureless terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05FA075
- Event ID
- 20050418X00470
- Case number
- SEA05FA075
- 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 2005-04-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2aedbe087eaae89176a7cb67962c41518f5ad06c714570c11e874ab7797846f7; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:04:40.586Z.