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WPR09LA221 · Raytheon Aircraft Company A36

8 Apr 2009 · Bullhead City, AZ, United States Possible conflict

Raytheon Aircraft Company A36 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing

From Chino Airport (CNO) to Eagle Airpark (A09)

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Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.

Event

NTSB case
WPR09LA221
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
0 · 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

Raytheon Aircraft Company 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
N3224Q
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CATo Eagle Airpark (A09), Bullhead City, AZ
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
Landing · flare/touchdown
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 on ground
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
  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

As the flight approached its destination, the pilot listened to the automated surface observation station weather report at an airport located about 7 nautical miles north of the destination airport. According to the pilot, the wind at the nearby airport was out of the northwest at 10 mph gusting to 15. The pilot stated that he flew over the destination airport and determined that the winds were as reported at the nearby airport. The final approach to Runway 35 appeared normal to the pilot, and he noticed a crosswind presence. The pilot commented that the "airplane was responding as usual, and there was no indication of severe gusting or any unusual wind condition." The pilot said that as the airplane touched down, "an extreme unpredictable northwest dust devil and/or whirlwind hit the front of my airplane causing the airplane to veer to the right." The airplane veered to the right, exited the runway, and impacted bushes adjacent to the runway. The nose landing gear and left main landing gear collapsed, and the left wing tip fuel tank and left aileron were bent and wrinkled. About 1 hour before the accident, the reported wind at the nearby airport was from 270 degrees at 11 knots, gusting to 18 knots. Near the time of the accident, the reported wind was from 300 degrees at 12 knots, gusting to 22 knots. About 1 hour after the accident, the reported wind was from 300 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 22 knots. Based on the reported gusty northwest winds, it appears likely that what the pilot called a "northwest dust devil and/or whirlwind" was actually a gust of wind from the northwest.

Probable cause

The pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusting crosswinds and his failure to maintain directional control during landing.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR09LA221
Event ID
20090430X13727
Case number
WPR09LA221
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: dcc684329dc93bf92bb52d372957fac58e4f0e10888c351c8c7296a54c4992f3; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:00:07.396Z.