ERA15FA023 · Beech D95 A
Carolina Barnstormers Beech D95 A · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Lake Ridge Aero Park Airport (8NC8) to Lake Ridge Aero Park Airport (8NC8)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15FA023
- 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 D95 A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 95
- 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
- N64GM
- Operator
- Carolina Barnstormers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake Ridge Aero Park Airport (8NC8), Durham, NCTo Lake Ridge Aero Park Airport (8NC8), Durham, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1964)
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor, who had recently purchased the multiengine airplane, was providing flight instruction to a non-multiengine-rated private pilot (the student). A witness reported that the flight departed uneventfully, and radar data indicated that the airplane climbed to and leveled off about 1,000 ft above ground level. The airplane's calculated airspeed initially increased to about 130 knots (kts) and then, about 3 minutes into the flight, began to decrease. About 30 seconds later, the airplane began to climb while continuing to lose airspeed. For the final seconds of the flight, the airplane's calculated airspeed was less than 50 kts and close to its expected stall speed. The airplane then entered a rapid descent, and its track deviated to the left.
Examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane impacted trees and terrain in a near-vertical attitude. The airplane's rapid loss of altitude and vertical impact were consistent with the airplane's decaying airspeed resulting in the exceedance of its critical angle-of-attack and a subsequent aerodynamic stall. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure of the airframe or either engine.
The airplane was equipped with a single throw-over-type control wheel (for elevator and aileron control) and two sets of rudder pedals. The control wheel was found positioned to the left seat, where the student was seated. The student survived the accident but was unable to recall any of the events that transpired during the flight. Thus, the specific sequence of events that resulted in the airplane's eventual aerodynamic stall could not be determined. Regardless, the configuration of the airplane's control wheel would not have allowed the flight instructor to take control of the airplane in order to prevent or recover from the stall.
Probable cause
The pilots' failure to maintain adequate airspeed during climb, which resulted in the airplane's wing exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and a subsequent aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's decision to conduct a training flight in an airplane equipped with a single throw-over-type control wheel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15FA023
- Event ID
- 20141021X50721
- Case number
- ERA15FA023
- 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: dffbd458cc5d73fa2bd6387a5a34d492486b583b89f751d5b6d90fe4e733a9fe; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:27:43.376Z.