WPR10CA175 · Beech 23
Beech 23 · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm during initial climb
From Twenty Nine Palms, CA to Chino Airport (CNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA175
- 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
Beech 23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N2325Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Twenty Nine Palms, 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
- 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, after rotating and obtaining the best angle of climb airspeed, the airplane began descending "as if it had lost lift or something was pushing it down." The pilot said that the airspeed was still at best angle of climb airspeed but the airplane was descending. As impact with terrain was assured, the pilot set up for a forced landing. The airplane subsequently impacted rising terrain about 150 to 200 feet from the departure end of the runway, which resulted in substantial damage to its right wing. The pilot reported that winds were variable at 6 knots, with gusts to 15 knots, and added that he felt the accident was the direct result of wind shear and could not have been prevented or detected. The pilot reported no anomalies with the airplane or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's encounter with a wind shear/downdraft that exceeded the climb performance capabilities of the airplane during initial climb.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA175
- Event ID
- 20100325X03421
- Case number
- WPR10CA175
- 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: 9832ee2d652d013cf8926125907ecf309309b93f8d4c66cdf4fa1e8cca1ef35a; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:47:22.259Z.