CEN13LA016 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Waukesha County Airport (UES) to Wausau Downtown Airport (AUW)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA016
- 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
- 0 · 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 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
- N121VP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukesha County Airport (UES), Waukesha, WITo Wausau Downtown Airport (AUW), Wausau, WI
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during the instrument landing system approach, the destination airport's weather system was reporting conditions below approach minimums. However, he chose to attempt the approach and, if necessary, execute a missed approach and hold until conditions improved. He stated that he usually set the decision altitude and lowered the landing gear at the final approach fix and that he thought that he had accomplished this on the accident approach; however, he stated that he did not remember hearing the decision altitude aural warning. He added that, when he was preparing the airplane for a missed approach, he saw the hills and trees, which the airplane then impacted. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt an instrument approach in meteorological conditions below approach minimums and his failure to properly execute a missed approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA016
- Event ID
- 20121019X34838
- Case number
- CEN13LA016
- 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, coordinates. 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: 25095a333a538751f89a5489ee896ba44338101a152d3c2268c9a944810bc5a9; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:12:57.842Z.