GAA17CA138 · Beech T 34B
Beech T 34B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG) to Albert Whitted Airport (SPG)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA138
- 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 T 34B
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft T-34
- 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
- N18PS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), ST PETERSBURG, FLTo Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), ST PETERSBURG, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 60 years (built 1957)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after maneuvering in the local area for about 45 minutes, he returned to his home airport for landing. During the final approach, the airplane sunk below the proper glidepath, and he increased the power three separate times, but the airplane continued to sink. Subsequently, the airplane struck a seawall located about 380 ft from the runway threshold, which resulted in the propeller separating from the propeller hub and the collapse of the landing gear.
The fuselage and both wings sustained substantial damage.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Safety Inspector who interviewed the pilot after the accident, the pilot reported that the engine did not contribute to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an appropriate glidepath to the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA138
- Event ID
- 20170212X02502
- Case number
- GAA17CA138
- 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: c8ab73eb29af7b6b55c220b62cc64fbc6b2127297203eb1e3e69122f6095f28c; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:00:27.712Z.