DFW06LA073 · Beech V35
Beech V35 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06LA073
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech V35
- 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
- N510LM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TXTo Stinson Municipal Airport (SSF), San Antonio, 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 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 3,000-hour commercial pilot was cleared by Air Traffic Control to the VOR and hold as published in the Instrument Approach Procedures. During the outbound leg of the published hold, he was cleared to descend to 2,000 feet, and for the approach to runway 32. During the approach, the pilot extended the landing gear and slowed the airplane to 90-knots. The pilot reported that he expected a circling approach to runway 14, since he heard the control tower clear another airplane for departure on runway 14. After the airplane descended below the clouds, the pilot had the airport in sight and proceeded towards the runway. The pilot stated that "all of a sudden, in seconds, the right wing went up, and the left wing went down, and I applied power but could not climb". The airplane subsequently impacted an open field just south of the airport. The pilot elected to reduce power and stay on the ground instead of attempting to regain altitude due to the risk of colliding with trees on the approach to the runway. The pilot further reported he thought he encountered a downdraft. An inspection on the engine was conducted and no abnormalities were found that would have prevented normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of control while on approach to the runway. Contributing factors were the downdraft and the lack of suitable terrain for the off-airport landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06LA073
- Event ID
- 20060228X00253
- Case number
- DFW06LA073
- 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: f3530241fb1a6cc1e9a857738b7172d68c9149ef763fb7e8f06a70a51de305b6; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:06:04.342Z.