CEN13FA089 · Beech 58
Bemidji Aviation Services Beech 58 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Bemidji Regional Airport (BJI) to Joliet Regional Airport (JOT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA089
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech 58
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 58
- 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
- N4016A
- Operator
- Bemidji Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bemidji Regional Airport (BJI), Bemidji, MNTo Joliet Regional Airport (JOT), Joliet, IL
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting pipeline surveillance at the time of the accident. A witness reported that he observed the accident airplane in level flight about 50 feet above a nearby two-story house. Everything appeared normal at that time; however, when he looked up a few moments later, the airplane was “sideways” with the wings oriented vertically. The airplane impacted an open field. The accident site was located about 1/3 mile east-southeast of the pipeline under surveillance. The debris path was about 950 feet long, and the airframe was fragmented during the impact sequence. A postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies consistent with a preimpact failure or malfunction. Analysis of all available information related to the accident did not reveal a definitive cause for the in-flight loss of control and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
An in-flight loss of control and impact with terrain for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA089
- Event ID
- 20121204X71407
- Case number
- CEN13FA089
- 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: 01dea99f13f4041062f13b1d53b694adcd5ac50bb6795719a172e07673501f5a; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:50:07.235Z.