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WPR09FA235 · Beech 95 A55

9 May 2009 · Minden, NV, United States

Beech 95 A55 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering

From KMIV · MInden, NV to KMIV · MInden, NV

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Event

NTSB case
WPR09FA235
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
5 · 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 95 A55

Aircraft type
Beechcraft 95
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
N1533Z
Operator
Gary Annas
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From KMIV · MInden, NVTo KMIV · MInden, NV
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
Collision with terrain/object (non-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
  • Personnel issues › Action/decision
  • Personnel issues › Task performance

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

NTSB narrative

Witnesses reported that the pilot had taken four friends that were attending an outdoor working group on a local flight. The airplane made two to three low passes over the working group. On the final pass, the airplane was slightly above the tops of the local houses, between 100 and 300 feet above ground level (agl). Recovered GPS data indicated that the airplane was traveling from northeast to southwest at 120 knots ground speed. The witnesses stated that the airplane then made a sudden steep climbing left turn that approached 90 degrees angle of bank, appeared to decelerate at the top of the climbing turn, then dropped towards the ground nose first to ground impact. The witnesses noted that the engines could be heard "running perfectly" throughout the maneuver. Post accident examination of the airplane established continuity from all control surfaces to the cockpit. Examination of both engines revealed no abnormal conditions or signatures.

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed while maneuvering during a low altitude maneuver that resulted in a stall.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR09FA235
Event ID
20090509X11335
Case number
WPR09FA235
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: 9c636e58b8242ce2583e4b6100d5ce231bb460a37bc82e8bec2c19823b3707f7; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:07:04.838Z.