CEN12FA082 · Beech 23
Beech 23 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Dayton-Phillipsburg Airport (3I7) to Marion Municipal Airport (MNN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12FA082
- 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
- Instrument 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
- N8700M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dayton-Phillipsburg Airport (3I7), Phillipsburg, OHTo Marion Municipal Airport (MNN), Marion, OH
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument-rated pilot was conducting the accident flight under visual flight rules without a flight plan in dark, night, instrument meteorological conditions. Radar data depicted that shortly after departure, the airplane performed a series of multi-directional turns at varying altitudes. Several witnesses observed or heard the airplane over their residences complete several turns at a low altitude. Based on the erratic flight of the airplane, the wreckage distribution, which was consistent with a high-speed impact, and the low visibility present at the time of the accident, it is likely that the pilot experienced spatial disorientation and lost control of the airplane. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Local law enforcement officers who responded to the accident site reported the clouds were about 700 feet above ground level when they arrived at the accident site. There is no record of the accident pilot receiving an official or "unofficial" weather briefing before departure. Federal Aviation Administration guidance indicated that spatial disorientation can occur when there is no natural horizon or surface reference, such as night flight in sparsely populated areas similar to that of the accident area and conditions.
Probable cause
The non-instrument-rated pilot's decision to attempt a flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in the pilot’s spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of control of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12FA082
- Event ID
- 20111126X55714
- Case number
- CEN12FA082
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2011-11-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a45110ca3373dac446df2baeab029e20a7d93afd75ff412eecb43a26488ed6df; retrieved 2026-09-13T22:00:45.682Z.