MIA06FA098 · Beech A24R
Beech A24R · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Wauchula Municipal Airport (CHN) to Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA06FA098
- 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 A24R
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 24
- 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
- N9774L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wauchula Municipal Airport (CHN), Wauchula, FLTo Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated private pilot was making a night cross country flight. Radar data indicated that the airplane departed, turned on course and maintained heading for about 24 minutes. The airplane then began to turn left and rapidly descend. The last radar hit placed the airplane less than 1 mile from the accident site. Examination of the wreckage indicated the airplane broke up in flight at a low altitude; the outboard wing panels and the left half of the horizontal stabilator were found about 1,000 feet from the main wreckage. All separations displayed signatures indicative of overload. The accident occurred at night with no illumination from the moon, which was more than 15 degrees below the horizon. Satellite infrared images depicted a broken cloud layer over the accident site with cloud tops near 13,000 feet. Weather radar images showed that the accident site bordered an area of VIP Level 2 moderate intensity echoes with echo tops near 13,000 feet. This area of echoes was associated with a decaying cumulonimbus cloud (thunderstorm). The proximity of the echoes to the accident site suggests the potential for moderate intensity convectively induced turbulence. It is likely that the pilot encountered instrument meteorological conditions or at least lost all visual reference, became disoriented and lost control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control as a result of spatial disorientation and an in-flight break up. Contributing to the accident were the dark night and thunderstorms.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA06FA098
- Event ID
- 20060505X00515
- Case number
- MIA06FA098
- 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 2006-04-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dc051a46face3cc4eaaa7e92bdb33752dcbf7a23cefbfcc7e27c22ff457b7730; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:22:34.751Z.