GAA17CA086 · Beech A36 UNDESIGNAT
Beech A36 UNDESIGNAT · Accident: birdstrike en route
From Buckingham Field (FL59) to Buckingham Field (FL59)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA086
- 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 A36 UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N64793
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buckingham Field (FL59), Fort Myers, FLTo Buckingham Field (FL59), Fort Myers, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 34 years (built 1982)
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The co-pilot reported "a flock of buzzards" passed in front of the airplane while en-route, and "the PIC [pilot in command] took evasive action." He further reported a buzzard collided with the airplane at the top of the windscreen and there was a "loud bomb like bang/thump" followed by a loud rush of air. Subsequently, the pilot in command declared an emergency with air traffic control and landed at the nearest airport without further incident.
The windscreen was substantially damaged.
The pilot did not report any preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with a flock of birds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA086
- Event ID
- 20161205X03722
- Case number
- GAA17CA086
- 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: d4c01cab47e2c48d59c9dbfa4e5e74025685deea0976e532a4e1b2b01d6731c6; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:52:29.183Z.