ERA15LA357 · Beech V35B B
Western Flying Club Beech V35B B · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Wilmington International Airport (ILM) to Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA357
- 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 B
- 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
- N789WF
- Operator
- Western Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington International Airport (ILM), Wilmington, NCTo Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), Gainesville, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 handling/service
- 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 private reported that he filled each of the fuel tanks and loaded the six seat, single-engine airplane with four occupants and baggage before attempting to depart on the cross-country personal flight. During the attempted takeoff, the airplane's nose pitched abruptly upward and turned left. The pilot continued the takeoff as the airplane departed the runway surface. The airplane then bounced several times, entered an aerodynamic stall, and subsequently struck the airport perimeter fence, which resulted in substantial damage to the airframe.
After the accident, the pilot was unable to precisely account for the airplane's loading; an estimated calculation indicated that the airplane's total weight was well above, and that its center of gravity (CG) was well aft of, those specified by the airframe manufacturer and the provider of the aftermarket fuel tanks with which the airplane was equipped. Additionally, the elevator pitch trim was found set to a position that would have increased the airplane's tendency to pitch up, especially given its high weight and aft-located CG. The airplane's sudden pitch up during the takeoff roll was likely due to its improper loading and trim configuration, and its lateral departure (left turn) from the intended takeoff path was likely due to a known performance phenomena associated with single-engine airplanes operating at high power and low airspeed at takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper loading of the airplane, which resulted in a sudden pitch up during the attempted takeoff, the pilot’s subsequent loss of directional control, and an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA357
- Event ID
- 20150915X93727
- Case number
- ERA15LA357
- 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: 1fe94a4d865a81fbd0aa6e00d2e2ec343927bfef99eb34eb8763e85a3955604f; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:46:41.989Z.