CHI08FA066 · Hawker Beechcraft Corp. 58
Aitheras Aviation Group Hawker Beechcraft Corp. 58 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL) to Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08FA066
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Hawker Beechcraft Corp. 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N3217L
- Operator
- Aitheras Aviation Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL), Cleveland, OHTo Niagara Falls International Airport (IAG), Niagara Falls, NY
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was hired by the airplane operator for a positioning flight. The pilot departed at night in a northerly right turn over Lake Erie from a lake shore airport. The moon and city associated with the airport were south of his flight path. The airplane was observed descending in the right hand turn and subsequently impacting the lake. An examination of the recovered wreckage revealed no preimpact anomalies, and an engine monitor recorded sensor readings consistent with both engines being at a high power until the recorded data stopped. The pilot had a history of back pain and had been regularly and recently using a potentially sedating muscle relaxant, which could cause impairment. He had heart disease identified during the autopsy that may have increased his risk of sudden cardiac death. He was also at high risk for obstructive sleep apnea, which commonly causes fatigue and cognitive impairment; however, the investigation could not conclusively identify that the pilot was impaired. The maneuvering of the aircraft and lack of outside visual references soon after takeoff made the situation conducive to spatial disorientation.
Probable cause
The pilot experienced spatial disorientation during the inital climb causing him to lose control of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08FA066
- Event ID
- 20080122X00085
- Case number
- CHI08FA066
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2008-01-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 67f38d34f6cb52093bbeb540b31e97026fd2d65b6d565de25150115b1623a567; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:53:35.271Z.