CEN13FA082 · Beech P35
Beech P35 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC while maneuvering
From Central Nebraska Regional Airport (KGRI) to Correctionville, IA
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA082
- 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 P35
- 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
- N1566Z
- Operator
- Knaack Gaylen M
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Central Nebraska Regional Airport (KGRI), Grand Island, NETo Correctionville, IA
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was receiving flight-following services. He advised an air traffic controller that he had the airport in sight, and the controller acknowledged and told the pilot that radar services were terminated. The airport had an unimproved grass strip and runway lights. Two witnesses who lived next to the airport said thick fog quickly enveloped the area shortly before the accident. Another witness said that visibility had dropped to less than 1/4 mile and that he heard the airplane fly low over his house but could not see it. On the approach to land, the airplane struck trees and terrain about 1/4 mile northeast of the airport. A postimpact fire ensued. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane was instrument equipped and the commercial pilot held an instrument rating.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to perform a go-around after encountering thick fog at night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA082
- Event ID
- 20121202X10016
- Case number
- CEN13FA082
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-12-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 27cdcee8a15149b1cf96ca96e3003e4673dc1e3c87816cc005240a2ac8f2f370; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:49:43.414Z.