DFW07FA041 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Ardmore Downtown Executive Airport (1F0) to Drake Field (FYV)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07FA041
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N1100J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ardmore Downtown Executive Airport (1F0), Ardmore, OKTo Drake Field (FYV), Fayetteville, AR
- 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 · IFR initial 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 collision with object
- 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 › Clearance, 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 instrument rated commercial pilot was executing a night instrument approach to Runway 34 when the single-engine airplane collided with trees. The published approach minimums for the LDA/DME RWY 34 approach are an 800-foot ceiling and one-mile visibility. One surviving passenger on the airplane reported that as the airplane dropped below the clouds, it collided with the trees during the night. He added that it was foggy at the lower altitude. Another surviving passenger reported that the flight circled the airport once while the pilot was "punching numbers on a pad on the instrument panel." He also stated that "they couldn't see the runway lights" and the airplane collided with the trees short of the airport. About the time of the accident, a 400-foot ceiling was reported. After the accident, the runway lighting was verified as being operational. An examination of the airplane failed to reveal any anomalies with the airframe or systems. The aircraft collided with the trees in a wings level attitude approximately 4 miles from, and on the approach path to the runway. The instrument approach was flight checked as "fully operational" by the FAA following the accident. The pilot disregarded the glide slope information and tried to "duck" under the prevailing fog in order to see the approach lights.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from obstacles. Contributing factors were the below approach/landing weather minimums, and the prevailing dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07FA041
- Event ID
- 20061226X01844
- Case number
- DFW07FA041
- 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 2006-12-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bce12abbc133c8416580b419206858e15e910293c64947a4d4ad5b1766a634cc; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:57:30.660Z.