ERA11FA036 · Beech B36TC
Beech B36TC · Accident: inflight upset en route
From Olive Branch Airport (OLV) to DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11FA036
- 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 B36TC
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N8045Y
- Operator
- Judson James W JR · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Olive Branch Airport (OLV), Olive Branch, MSTo DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK), Atlanta, GA
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Inflight upset
- 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 structures
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departure, the pilot contacted the flight service station controller to file an instrument flight rules flight plan. During the conversation, the briefer asked the pilot, "Do you require the latest adverse [weather] conditions?" The pilot replied, "No, that's why we are getting out of here." Before ending the phone call, the briefer confirmed with the pilot that he had been advised of the adverse weather conditions and the pilot acknowledged that he had. The airplane departed and climbed to 14,800 feet where it entered a rapid descent and disappeared from radar at 13,900 feet.
A survey of the wreckage indicated that all fracture features were consistent with overload failure induced by air-load or impact, and examination revealed no evidence of a preaccident mechanical malfunction. The fracture signatures suggested that the primary separation point was at the wing spar carry-through.
Examination of weather radar data revealed that a line of intense or extreme thunderstorms crossed the airplane's route of flight in the vicinity of the crash site at the time of the accident. A review of subscription information revealed that the pilot had subscribed to a satellite weather service, which could be displayed in the airplane. Some of the products available to the pilot included near real-time NEXRAD radar, Terminal Area Forecasts, AIRMETs and SIGMETs. It is unknown if the system was enabled or what features the pilot may have had displayed at the time of the accident.
A review of recorded radar track information and radar precipitation information showed that the airplane’s flight path approached and entered an area depicted as heavy to extreme precipitation. The controller who handled the airplane only provided the accident pilot with a 20-minute old pilot report from an airplane not in the vicinity of the accident. No other information was provided to the pilot about the precipitation depicted on the controller’s display, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration. On at least two previous occasions, the pilot had substantially damaged airplanes during encounters with adverse weather.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued flight into known adverse weather conditions. Contributing to the accident was the air traffic controller's failure to provide precipitation information to the pilot as required.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11FA036
- Event ID
- 20101026X35112
- Case number
- ERA11FA036
- 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: 59e7a7da3e3229faadd201f2450162335e52e535f5fb8c9fbb95f3d64fcd6806; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:06:16.692Z.