LAX06FA130 · Beech F33A
Beech F33A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Henderson Executive Airport (HND) to Scottsdale Airport (SDL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX06FA130
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech F33A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N41PT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Henderson Executive Airport (HND), Las Vegas, NVTo Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZ
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane collided with a mountain located between the departure and destination airports during a night cross-country flight that included an encounter with instrument meteorological conditions. There was no indication that the noninstrument rated private pilot had ever flown over the accident route, which consisted of flat terrain interspersed with mountains, prior to the accident flight. The pilot utilized his global positioning satellite (GPS) unit for navigation purposes, and reportedly was very comfortable using it. Recorded radar data was used to track the flight from departure to near the accident site. The majority of the radar returns were uniformly spaced and followed an anticipated track towards the destination airport. Radar returns revealed a gradual increase in altitude over about a 9-minute duration, from 6,500 feet mean sea level (msl), until radar contact was lost at 9,100 feet msl. The last radar return was about 0.62 nm from the accident location. The accident site was located on a mountain side at an elevation of 5,450 feet. Analysis of weather data disclosed that the cloud bases were near 5,100 feet, and the tops above 11,000 feet msl. The freezing level was about 6,000 feet msl, with light to moderate icing likely above the freezing level. Satellite imagery was reviewed around the time of the accident, and disclosed that an extensive area of overcast skies existed in the vicinity of the accident site. The wreckage and the ground scars were consistent with a high speed descending flight path. During postaccident examinations, investigators found no anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The noninstrument rated pilot's cruise flight into instrument meteorological conditions, and his failure to maintain control of the airplane, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent, and an in-flight collision with terrain. Factors associated with the accident are clouds/obscuration, the pilot's spatial disorientation, and his inadequate in-flight planning and decision making.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX06FA130
- Event ID
- 20060322X00330
- Case number
- LAX06FA130
- 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 2006-03-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d87b88aab8d25d0e32465253bb8ecd92c65a4e290f4380ab5be31e411ec70953; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:29:16.977Z.