ByGone Aviation Beech H-18 accident
Beech H-18 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT) to Great Bend Municipal Airport (GBD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07FA059
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 H-18
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft H-18
- 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
- N45GM
- Operator
- Bygone Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT), Wichita, KSTo Great Bend Municipal Airport (GBD), Great Bend, KS
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 missed 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to the flight, the pilot obtained a weather briefing which included an AIRMET for IFR conditions and an AIRMET for icing that was "just off to the north." According to air traffic control (ATC) information, the en route portion of the flight was uneventful. ATC cleared the pilot for an ILS approach to runway 35, and the pilot acknowledged the approach clearance. When the airplane reached the outer marker ATC approved the pilot for a frequency change to the common traffic advisory frequency. The pilot acknowledged the frequency change, and no further communications were received from the pilot by ATC. Witnesses observed the observed the airplane approximately 200 feet above ground level (agl) on a northwesterly heading, west of runway 35. The airplane then entered a climbing left turn to the south and disappeared into the overcast cloud layer. Shortly thereafter, the witness observed the airplane in a "20 degree nose down, wings level attitude" on a southeasterly heading. The witness then lost sight of the airplane due to hangars obstructing his view. At the time of the accident, the witness stated that the ceiling was approximately 500 foot overcast with mist. The published missed approach procedure instructed the pilot to initiate a climbing left turn to a fix and hold. Examination of the accident site revealed the airplane impacted the terrain in a right wing, nose-low attitude. No ground impact marks were noted except in the immediate vicinity of the wing leading edges, engines, and propeller assemblies. The flaps and landing gear were in the extended position. The leading edge surfaces of the vertical and horizontal stabilizers revealed 1/4 to 1/2 inches of clear ice. The upper fuselage antenna displayed 1/4 to 1/2 inches of clear ice. Local authorities reported observing a "layer of ice" on the leading edges of both wings when they arrived to the accident site. Examination of the airframe and engines revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the missed approach which resulted in an inadvertent stall and impact with terrain. A contributing factor was the icing conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07FA059
- Event ID
- 20070214X00181
- Case number
- DEN07FA059
- 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: 59d5c62942c5672990c52154a9cfb496048a386cfa9dc104a7afe70b926f97fa; retrieved 2026-09-18T12:55:45.904Z.