WPR19FA001 · Beech V35
Beech V35 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Bishop, CA to Brackett Field (POC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19FA001
- 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
- 1 · 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 V35
- 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
- N7997M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bishop, CATo Brackett Field (POC), La Verne, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was approaching his home airport in day visual meteorological conditions at the conclusion of a cross-country flight. The tower controller cleared the pilot for a straight-in approach to runway 8R and advised him that another airplane about 1 mile ahead was inbound for landing on the parallel runway, 8L. A short time later, the controller asked the accident pilot if he had the other airplane in sight. The pilot responded that he was looking for the traffic and was inbound for runway 8L. The controller immediately corrected the pilot and verified he was cleared to land on runway 8R, which the pilot confirmed. Shortly thereafter, the pilot told the controller that he had the other airplane in sight and that it was aligned with runway 8R. The controller queried the pilot of the other airplane and verified that that airplane was cleared for landing on runway 8L, then confirmed with the accident pilot that the accident airplane was cleared for 8R. About 20 seconds later, the controller asked the accident pilot if he was landing 8R and subsequently instructed him to go-around and offset his flight path to the right. There was no further communication from the accident airplane. Witnesses, who were at the site of an aircraft accident that occurred the previous day near the end of the runways, heard the accident airplane impact trees. They turned to see the airplane in a left banking, nose-low attitude that progressively steepened before the airplane impacted the ground, a post-impact fire ensued. Radar data showed the accident airplane proceeding toward the airport left of the runway 8R centerline until it was about 0.76 nautical mile (nm) west of the runway 8R, when it turned right, then left.
The final 3 radar targets showed a right turn toward runway 8R. Radar data showed that the other airplane was flying right of the runway 8L centerline until about 0.64 nm of runway 8L, when it turned left toward runway 8L.
Examination revealed no anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Given the apparent confusion regarding the inbound airplanes' runway assignments and the multiple communications with air traffic control, it is likely that the pilot's attention was diverted from the task of flying the airplane throughout the approach. It is likely that the pilot's distraction resulted in his failure to recognize that the airplane had descended below a proper approach path, and the airplane's subsequent collision with trees.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from trees during a visual approach for landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's distraction during the approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19FA001
- Event ID
- 20181001X53426
- Case number
- WPR19FA001
- 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: a35e2a883f26d09d51c57bf2320af594825bc5aa856b186c60c181b304790f21; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:48:50.374Z.