WPR16FA065 · Beech M35
Beech M35 and Bellanca 8KCAB · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR16FA065
- 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
- 3 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Beech M35
- 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
- N9872R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Camarillo International Airport (CMA), Camarillo, CATo Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1960)
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Bellanca 8KCAB
- Aircraft type
- Bellanca 8
- 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
- N5057G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CATo Zamperini Field (TOA), Torrance, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A private pilot and a pilot-rated passenger were on a personal cross-county flight in a Beechcraft M35, and a private pilot was on a local personal flight in a Bellanca 8KCAB when the airplanes collided in mid-air over an ocean harbor. Before the collision, the Beechcraft, a low-wing airplane, was descending from 3,500 ft, and flying in an east-northeast direction. The Bellanca, a high-wing airplane, was flying toward the sun in a west-northwest direction with intermittent radar returns between 3,000 and 3,500 ft.
Radar data showed the tracks of both airplanes converge with the airplanes approaching each other nearly head-on. The last radar return from the Beechcraft, just before the collision, was at 3,300 ft. Following the collision, both airplanes descended, impacted the ocean, and sank.
Postaccident examination of the recovered wreckage of both airplanes revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of either airplane. Postaccident examination did not identify any paint transfer marks on the airframe of either airplanes; however, not all the parts of the airplanes were recovered.
Ethanol was found in the tissues of each pilot, however, it is most likely that the ethanol was the result of post mortem production. Diphenhydramine, which can cause drowsiness and slow psychomotor reaction time, was detected in the Bellanca pilot's tissue; however, the lack of a blood sample precluded determination of the level of the drug present, and it could not be determined whether the Bellanca pilot was impaired by the effects of diphenhydramine.
All three pilots had a limitation on their Federal Aviation Administration medical certificates for eyeglasses; but two, the Beech pilot-rated passenger and the Bellanca pilot, only required them for near vision, which was not a factor in this accident. The Bellanca pilot had had cataract surgery on both eyes more than a year before the accident; this would be expected to significantly improve her vision and, therefore, likely did not contribute to the accident. Overall, it is unlikely that any problem with distant vision in any of the three pilots contributed to the accident.
It could not be determined why the Beechcraft pilot did not see the Bellanca. The Bellanca pilot was flying toward the sun, and sun glare could have contributed to her inability to see the approaching Beechcraft.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilots of both airplanes to see and avoid each other as they converged nearly head-on, which resulted in a midair collision. Contributing to the accident was the effect of sun glare on the other pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR16FA065
- Event ID
- 20160205X35852
- Case number
- WPR16FA065
- 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: 4e31f51774a76438f0699fb8e536a7b8e836431c2a4140497c915e400a7ce3c6; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:08:40.922Z.