ATL05FA148 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (KGAD) to Lake Cumberland Regional Airport (KSME)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05FA148
- 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 A36
- 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
- N1824W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (KGAD), Gadsden, ALTo Lake Cumberland Regional Airport (KSME), Somerset, KY
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before takeoff on the accident flight, the pilot obtained a preflight weather briefing that included Convective SIGMET information, and he acknowledged to the briefer that he was aware of thunderstorm activity northeast of GAD. The pilot departed GAD, proceeded northeast toward SME. While in cruise flight north of CSV, the pilot requested to deviate to the left of course for an "immediate buildup," and the controller cleared the pilot to deviate right or left of course as necessary. A study of weather echo data and ATC radar data for the airplane's ground track showed that, about the time that the pilot made the request to deviate, the airplane was likely encountering the southern edge of an intense weather echo. After the pilot acknowledged the clearance, the controller advised the pilot that there appeared to be "weather" off the pilot's left side. The pilot responded that he also showed it in front and that he wanted to keep turning left to avoid it. The controller advised the pilot that he didn't see any weather for which the pilot would want to deviate to the left, and he again cleared the pilot to deviate to the right or the left. About 1 minute later, the controller restricted the pilot's heading and altitude clearances, and the pilot acknowledged. The controller did not provide the pilot any echo intensity, location, or distance information. The pilot did request any further deviations or advise of an emergency. According to the weather echo and ground track study, the airplane encountered intense to extreme thunderstorm activity and turbulence. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to continue flight into an area of known thunderstorm activity, which resulted in loss of aircraft control and collision with trees and the ground during the result uncontrolled descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05FA148
- Event ID
- 20050831X01344
- Case number
- ATL05FA148
- 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: 23df9789e5de1ae0dfdd86b93535edd327092917b6d6e9a82d310b422cd03111; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:55:42.024Z.