ERA15CA176 · Beech V35B
Beech V35B · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS) to Wetumpka Municipal Airport (08A)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA176
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Beech V35B
- 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
- N9172Q
- Operator
- Power Daniel N
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scholes International At Galveston Airport (GLS), Galveston, TXTo Wetumpka Municipal Airport (08A), Wetumpka, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1970)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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 pilot reported that he was landing his airplane at night and mistook the hangar lights for runway lights. The airplane struck trees on the final approach, then the ground before coming to rest, inverted. The pilot said that, in retrospect, he was on the incorrect radio frequency when he attempted to turn on the pilot-activated runway lights. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the wreckage and reported that the airplane sustained substantial damage. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical problems with the airplane at the time of the accident. The runway lights operated normally after the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's use of an incorrect radio frequency when attempting to turn on the runway lights, resulting is an attempt to land the airplane while aligned with airport hangar lights.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA176
- Event ID
- 20150406X41451
- Case number
- ERA15CA176
- 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 2015-04-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f6f5cd5041ba0c61dc777264b8fdb2667268d423f44a512505a2657d59477e2e; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:12:35.569Z.