GAA16CA228 · Beech C23
Beech C23 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Yucca Valley Airport (L22) to Yucca Valley Airport (L22)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA228
- 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 C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 23
- 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
- N6566R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yucca Valley Airport (L22), Yucca Valley, CATo Yucca Valley Airport (L22), Yucca Valley, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1974)
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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 student pilot, during the takeoff on runway 24, the wind was variable at 10 knots. He reported that he departed runway 24 and as the airplane began to climb, "a sudden crosswind gust" made the airplane drift to the right of the runway centerline. He reported that the flight controls became unresponsive, the airplane descended and the left wing struck the ground, then the right wing struck the ground. The airplane was resting on a sand berm, and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings.
A post-accident inspection by an NTSB Air Safety Investigator revealed that there were no flight control anomalies.
The nearest weather reporting station, 19 miles south of the accident site, at the time of the accident reported that the wind was from 330 degrees true at 12 knots gusting to 18 knots. Furthermore the wind direction was variable from 310 degrees true to 020 degrees true. A postaccident examination of the flight controls showed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to attain airspeed and a positive rate of climb during takeoff in gusty wind conditions, resulting in a loss of directional control, an uncontrolled descent and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA228
- Event ID
- 20160510X01715
- Case number
- GAA16CA228
- 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: 06bc1d9da400e1c4b5d30a2ef637038bec77a817b893d4e2aa998f9d35138508; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:22:06.868Z.