SEA08FA042 · Beech 200
QB Beech 200 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Lemhi County Airport (KSMN) to Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (KBOI)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA08FA042
- 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 200
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 200
- 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
- N925TT
- Operator
- QB
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lemhi County Airport (KSMN), Salmon, IDTo Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (KBOI), Boise, ID
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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/mush
- 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 › Ice/frost removal from aircraft, not performed
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, encountered
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot removed the airplane from a hangar that was kept heated to about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and parked it on the ramp while awaiting the arrival of the passengers. The outside temperature was below freezing, and a steady light to moderate snow was falling. The airplane sat in the aforementioned ambient conditions for at least 45 minutes before the initiation of the takeoff roll. Prior to attempting the takeoff, the pilot did not remove the accumulated snow or the snow that had melted on the warm airframe and then refroze as ice. The surviving passengers said that the takeoff ground run was longer than normal and the airplane lifted off at 100 knots indicated and momentarily touched back down, and then lifted off again. Almost immediately after it lifted off the second time, the airplane rolled into a steep right bank severe enough that the surviving passengers thought that the wing tip might contact the ground. As the pilot continued the takeoff initial climb, the airplane repeatedly rolled rapidly to a steep left and right bank angle several times and did not seem to be climbing. The airplane was also shuddering, and to the passengers it felt like it may have stalled or dropped. The pilot then lowered the nose and appeared to attain level flight. The pilot made a left turn of about 180 degrees to a downwind for the takeoff runway. During this turn the airplane reportedly again rolled to a steeper than normal bank angle, but the pilot successfully recovered. When the pilot initiated a left turn toward the end of the runway, the airplane again began to shake, shudder, and yaw, and started to rapidly lose altitude. Although the pilot appeared to push the throttles full forward soon after initiating the turn, the airplane began to sink at an excessive rate, and continued to do so until it struck a hangar approximately 1,300 feet southwest of the approach end of runway 35. No pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures were identified in examinations of the wreckage and engines.
Probable cause
An in-flight loss of control due to the pilot's failure to remove ice and snow from the airplane prior to takeoff. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's improper preflight preparation/actions, falling snow, and a low ambient temperature.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA08FA042
- Event ID
- 20071219X01978
- Case number
- SEA08FA042
- 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. 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: 2d04937c441846b19898bf0c05d3d00f1766fd40a96ccada8fda96ec07488dd9; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:03:39.603Z.