CEN15LA098 · Raytheon Aircraft Company A36
Raytheon Aircraft Company A36 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Carmi Municipal Airport (CUL) to Delaware County Johnson Field (MIE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA098
- 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
Raytheon Aircraft Company 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
- N349EA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carmi Municipal Airport (CUL), Carmi, ILTo Delaware County Johnson Field (MIE), Muncie, IN
- 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
- 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 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 cruise flight, the air traffic controller instructed him to descend from 9,000 to 4,000 ft. While performing the descent checklist, the pilot switched fuel tanks, and the engine subsequently lost power. The pilot further reported that he was certain that the engine restarted and that the event put him "behind the airplane in performing…cockpit duties." The next thing the pilot remembered was the controller informing him that he was flying in circles and losing altitude. The pilot thought the airplane was in a spin and tried to regain control. After the airplane broke out of the clouds into poor visibility and snow, the pilot chose to land in a cornfield. During the landing, the airplane impacted trees and terrain. A witness reported observing the airplane at a low altitude traveling at a high rate of speed, then it pitched up to almost vertical flight, descended, and impacted terrain. No preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures were noted with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of airplane control while troubleshooting an engine issue in instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in impact with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA098
- Event ID
- 20150106X44718
- Case number
- CEN15LA098
- 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: bcaa06b851f4c256c77674475baacc68c0b873a07bf72e90394f0bc521a10afd; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:01:03.620Z.