CEN17LA097 · Beech BE35
Beech BE35 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Gimlin Airport (18MO) to Gimlin Airport (18MO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA097
- 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 BE35
- 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
- N4213B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gimlin Airport (18MO), Ozark, MOTo Gimlin Airport (18MO), Ozark, MO
- Aircraft age
- About 61 years (built 1956)
- 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
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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 › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was for the pilot to gain some experience, with a pilot-rated passenger onboard, in his recently purchased airplane. The pilot reported that, after completing about 10 touch-and-go landings at a nearby airport, he flew the airplane back to his home airport for a full-stop landing. The pilot announced the he was entering a left downwind, reduced the speed, and lowered the landing gear. After turning to final approach, the pilot lowered the flaps and was concentrating on lining up the airplane on the runway centerline. The pilot-rated passenger stated that the airplane was lined up on the runway but that it seemed a little low. The passenger stated that, after passing over a tree line, the pilot surprised him by reducing the power rather than increasing it. Subsequently, the airplane descended into power lines and then impacted the ground and tumbled inverted. The pilot stated that he did not see the power lines nor that he was looking for any because they "had not been a factor" in his previous approaches.
The power lines were located about 1/4 mile from the airport. Evidence at the accident site revealed that the airplane had impacted the top two lines of a four-line power line. After the accident, the pilot stated that there were no mechanical issues with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot failed to adequately monitor the environment and to maintain sufficient altitude to clear the power lines.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adequately monitor the environment and to maintain sufficient altitude to clear power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA097
- Event ID
- 20170201X54942
- Case number
- CEN17LA097
- 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: d525e458136609813836a9bed9fe4be788c88717bf7581b29d130142a2f32dbe; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:59:22.118Z.