CEN10FA299 · Beech G35
Beech G35 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) while maneuvering
From Marble, CO to Marble, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10FA299
- 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 G35
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 35
- 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
- N887M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marble, COTo Marble, CO
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was attempting to land to the east on a private airstrip in mountainous terrain. The surviving passengers reported that the sun had just crested the mountains, obscuring their vision as they approached the vicinity of the airstrip. The pilot overflew the intended destination and informed the passengers that he would turn to land on the airstrip. The pilot misjudged his turn radius and the proximity of the mountains and turned into terrain. The passengers stated that the pilot attempted to maneuver away from the mountain but was unable. A postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any preimpact anomalies which would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. A review of the pilot's log book revealed that he had only operated in mountainous terrain when he flew into the airstrip a few days prior to the accident. Several medications, including hydrocodone, were detected during toxicology. The lack of hydrocodone in the blood sample suggests that the pilot had not ingested this medication within the previous 12 hours and was not impaired by its use. It is unclear what conditions the pilot was treating with medication and whether these conditions interfered with his ability to pilot the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s miscalculation of the airplane's turn radius and climb capabilities at high altitude, resulting in controlled flight into terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of mountain flying experience and restricted visibility due to the rising sun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10FA299
- Event ID
- 20100606X25505
- Case number
- CEN10FA299
- 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: ef4158221fa1b23f9c5cfe0afbc9c3a5b885ee1701bce057400800af2b8601b9; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:51:16.018Z.