WPR11FA381 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Driggs/Reed Memorial Airport (DIJ) to Denver, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11FA381
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech A36
- 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
- N324AT
- Operator
- Robert Dawson
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Driggs/Reed Memorial Airport (DIJ), Driggs, IDTo Denver, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 1997)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was flying under visual flight rules flight following. Recorded radar data indicated that the airplane maintained a relatively straight track to the southeast at an altitude of between 15,100 feet and 15,500 feet before descending near the area of the accident site. About 1 minute before the last recorded radar target, the pilot checked in with the controller; the airplane's altitude was 13,200 feet. The last two radar targets indicated a descending right turn. The airplane lost 700 feet in 21 seconds, and the last radar contact was at 12,100 feet. The controller noticed a loss of radar contact and attempted to contact the pilot on the radio but was unable to. The accident site was located at an elevation of 11,400 feet in mountainous terrain about 1 mile west of the last radar contact. The debris field was on a westerly heading at the bottom of a slope and extended for about 580 feet indicating controlled flight into the terrain. It could not be determined why the pilot descended or why he did not maintain sufficient clearance from mountainous terrain. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11FA381
- Event ID
- 20110814X15623
- Case number
- WPR11FA381
- 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: 52bf8c805d9a9f5d68f042b650bbefedf4b39e851beda71a5a9bbc39f4abdce4; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:42:24.571Z.