CEN18FA143 · Beech G33
Beech G33 · Accident: loss of lift en route
From Elyria Airport (1G1) to Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18FA143
- 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
- 2 · 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 G33
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 33
- 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
- N9345Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elyria Airport (1G1), Elyria, OHTo Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED), DeLand, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1971)
- 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
- Loss of lift
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot departed on an instrument flight rules cross-country flight in the single-engine airplane that was not certificated for flight in icing conditions. During cruise flight at 4,000 ft mean sea level (msl), the pilot reported to air traffic control that the airplane was accumulating airframe icing and requested and was cleared to descend to 3,000 ft msl. As the airplane descended, the pilot indicated to the controller that the airplane had descended below the clouds, was in temperatures greater than 32°F, and that the airframe icing was "clearing up"; however, the airplane continued to descend and subsequently impacted terrain. First responders discovered pieces of ice at the accident site that displayed a curvature consistent with the leading edge of a wing or horizontal stabilizer. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any preimpact anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane.
There was no evidence that the pilot received an official weather briefing before the flight, which would have indicated the potential for moderate or greater icing conditions between 3,000 and 15,000 ft msl. It could not be determined if the pilot received any weather information from other sources. Review of additional weather information indicated the possibility of supercooled large droplet (SLD) icing in the area of the accident site about the time of the accident.
It is likely that the structural icing accumulated during the flight resulted in the pilot's inability to maintain airspeed and/or altitude, leading to a loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to continue flight in known icing conditions, which resulted in structural icing, degraded airplane performance, and a subsequent loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to obtain an official weather briefing before departure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18FA143
- Event ID
- 20180416X11351
- Case number
- CEN18FA143
- 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: 5530c8512d68ba5e4d01af7747d42ffdb75c03250bc08574fba1a23dc90c7e96; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:38:51.198Z.