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GAA16CA013 · Beech F33 A

12 Oct 2015 · Marana, AZ, United States

Airline Training Center Arizona Beech F33 A · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach

From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (KGYR) to Marana Regional Airport (KAVQ)

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Event

NTSB case
GAA16CA013
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 F33 A

Aircraft type
Beechcraft 33
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
N5581T
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Phoenix Goodyear Airport (KGYR), Goodyear, AZTo Marana Regional Airport (KAVQ), Marana, AZ
Aircraft age
About 26 years (built 1989)
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 go-around
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
Collision during takeoff/landing
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

According to the flight instructor, during the turn from base to the final, the stall warning horn sounded and the aircraft descent rate increased. The flight instructor reported that he told the student pilot to go-around, and the student increased the power, but the airplane continued to descend and touched down on the runway briefly. He reported that the student then tried to "pull" the airplane off of the runway and either failed to apply sufficient right rudder, or accidentally applied left rudder, and the airplane abruptly yawed to the left. The flight instructor reported that he immediately took control of the airplane which exited the runway to the left.

The flight instructor recounted that the airplane continued accelerating a few feet off of the ground. He reported that the airplane's left main landing gear struck the ground, and the "left wing tip must have scraped" the ground at that instant. He reported that he regained control of the airplane, initiated a climb, and executed a go-around. The flight instructor contacted the pilot of an airplane that was holding short of the runway and asked the pilot to look at the landing gear as he made a low pass. The pilot on the ground confirmed that the landing gear was intact. The flight instructor landed the airplane and contacted the operator. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left aileron.

The flight instructor reported that there were no mechanical failures or anomalies prior to or during the flight that would have prevented normal operation.

Probable cause

The student pilot's failure to maintain sufficient airspeed during the base to final turn resulting in an inadvertent aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain during recovery by the flight instructor.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record GAA16CA013
Event ID
20151014X12715
Case number
GAA16CA013
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: e22506a3fa55456a18474b9a6c71c238da883cfb8eb48b1a7445e48e4021bd64; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:53:10.944Z.