WPR09FA061 · Beech V35 B
Beech V35 B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Chino Airport (CNO) to Chino Airport (CNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09FA061
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech V35 B
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N1587L
- Operator
- Jerry F Peck · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CATo Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CA
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness to the accident reported that the airplane went straight up, stalled, started to spin downward, and then dove straight toward the ground before pulling up. The witness stated that he watched the airplane do the same maneuver a second time, again going straight up, starting to spin downward, and then go straight down before impacting a field. The witness said that a few weeks prior to the accident he observed the accident airplane performing the same maneuvers. All flight control components were accounted for at the accident site. The airplane was equipped with a single control column with a single yoke, which is commonly referred to as a "throw-over yoke." The single control arm, to which the single yoke is attached, was observed separated from the control column; this precluded identifying which pilot was manipulating the controls at the time of the accident. Examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical anomalies.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain clearance from terrain during a low altitude maneuver.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09FA061
- Event ID
- 20081220X85100
- Case number
- WPR09FA061
- 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: 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: 6d8f09a0300195f9fb04dbae2bab4ec405705eec36cda861fcff4a192642ab83; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:52:29.646Z.