ERA10FA246 · Beech 58
Beech 58 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) to Olive Branch Airport (OLV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10FA246
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N1856S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), Frederick, MDTo Olive Branch Airport (OLV), Olive Branch, MS
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on an instrument flight rules flight plan, and was en route to his destination, when he contacted air traffic control and requested a lower altitude because the airplane was losing airspeed. The pilot was instructed to descent to 7,000 feet. The pilot acknowledged the clearance and requested a lower altitude because he was still losing airspeed. The last altitude that the pilot was issued was 5,000 feet. The airplane was last observed by radar at 5,000 feet and there were no further communication between him and the controller.
A witness stated that he heard an airplane flying overhead and the engines were surging. He described the weather as extremely low clouds, mist and rain.
AIRMET Zulu was current for the area for moderate icing conditions from approximately 5,000 to 16,000 feet mean sea level. The pilot obtained a preflight weather briefing which included the AIRMET. The base reflectivity image with the overlaid flight track of the accident airplane indicated that the flight was maneuvering in echoes that indicated favorable conditions for icing during the flight. The airplane was approved for flight into known icing conditions because it was equipped with de-icing systems. The airplane was also equipped with an onboard weather radar system; however, it is unknown if the weather radar equipment was operating at the time of the accident.
A postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no preimpact anomalies with the engine, airframe or systems that would have precluded normal operation. It is probable that the airplane may have accumulated ice on its surfaces and the pilot was unable to maintain an adequate airspeed during the descent.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight planning/decision, his continued flight into adverse weather (icing conditions), and failure to maintain an adequate airspeed during the emergency descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10FA246
- Event ID
- 20100427X81628
- Case number
- ERA10FA246
- 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: 0a827510330510acf03108dd6073ccd7f8075688d8430a0820e750ef0c7a304c; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:46:25.589Z.