CEN14FA047 · Beechcraft B36TC
Beechcraft B36TC · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB) to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA047
- 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
- 3 · 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
Beechcraft B36TC
- 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
- N4245D
- Operator
- William M. Capt · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport (LBB), Lubbock, TXTo Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport (AMA), Amarillo, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 1999)
- 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 missed 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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 noninstrument-rated private pilot filed an instrument flight plan to an airport that was reporting night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), which included ¼-mile visibility, fog, sky obscuration, and 100-foot vertical visibility. Radar track data showed that, upon arrival at the airport, the pilot flew the instrument lighting system approach and then attempted to execute a missed approach. During the missed approach, radar contact was lost and the airplane impacted the terrain. The postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot's toxicology report indicated that gabapentin and duloxetine were found in the pilot's system, and both are disqualifying drugs for flight. The pilot did not report either of these disqualifying medications on his last medical certification examination. While both medications are sedating, a witness reported that the pilot was alert and energetic before the flight and showed no signs of sedation. Witness reports and findings from the wreckage examination are consistent with a loss of control event, and, based on the degraded visual reference conditions present about the time of the accident, it is likely that the pilot experienced spatial disorientation. Although it could not be determined what effect the use of the medications had on the pilot's performance during the high-workload IMC flight, their use could increase the chance of experiencing and responding inappropriately to spatial disorientation.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot’s improper decision to fly a night instrument approach in instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in the pilot’s spatial disorientation and loss of control of the airplane during an attempted missed approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA047
- Event ID
- 20131111X10005
- Case number
- CEN14FA047
- 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: 464648f45d2e8233fe0963b65587d920ac7a92f42671a0faa490368582614dc6; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:07:03.566Z.