NYC08FA109 · Beech A36
BZM Beech A36 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Yeager Airport (CRW) to CBE · Cumberland, MD
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08FA109
- 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 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
- N3815T
- Operator
- BZM
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yeager Airport (CRW), Charleston, WVTo CBE · Cumberland, MD
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a localizer/distance measuring equipment approach to runway 23, in night instrument meteorological conditions, to an airport that was 775 feet above mean sea level (msl). Radar contact with the airplane was lost while the airplane was inbound on the approach, about 12 miles northeast of the airport at an altitude of 3,700 feet msl. Air traffic control advised the pilot that he was no longer under radar coverage, which he acknowledged. There were no further communications received from the airplane. The airplane impacted 60- to 80-foot-tall trees at the top of a ridgeline that was about 1,240 feet msl, approximately 3.13 miles northeast of the airport. The debris path was oriented about a 110-degree heading, and the airplane came to rest about a 065-degree bearing from the runway. Examination of the wreckage, which was extensively fire- and impact-damaged, did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions. The pilot was an active Federal Aviation Administration-designated pilot examiner and had about 11,500 hours of total flight experience. A weather observation taken at the airport about the time of the accident included winds from 150 degrees at 6 knots, visibility of 1 1/4 miles, and a 600-foot overcast ceiling. The minimum visibility for the approach was 1 mile and the minimum descent altitude was 1,400 feet msl.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the proper approach course for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08FA109
- Event ID
- 20080319X00336
- Case number
- NYC08FA109
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-02-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4dac711a473d4c17d9b93663f1dd057a89cc5e44ffd5a612a050b6da1df809f1; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:59:30.969Z.