ERA10FA178 · Beech 95
Beech 95 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Sky Acres Airport (44N) to Sullivan County International Airport (MSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10FA178
- 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
Beech 95
- 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
- N9389Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sky Acres Airport (44N), Pleasant Valley, NYTo Sullivan County International Airport (MSV), Monticello, 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness, who was a pilot, reported that he observed the airplane climb to approximately 50 feet above ground level (agl), yaw to the left, return to straight flight, climb to approximately 300 feet agl, yaw to the left a second time, and then bank to the left. The nose of the airplane then pitched down to about a perpendicular position with reference to the surrounding terrain, completing 1 to 1 1/2 spin rotations before going out of sight behind a row of trees. A postaccident examination of the airplane established continuity from all control surfaces to the cockpit. Examination of both engines revealed thermal damage; however, all cylinders produced suction and no abnormal mechanical anomalies or signatures were noted.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed during takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10FA178
- Event ID
- 20100318X30018
- Case number
- ERA10FA178
- 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, coordinates. 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: 460356a79ff1a745b634fc9a2a664146847a089185fcce645676de06805d21e4; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:43:17.625Z.