CEN21FA007 · Beech S35
Beech S35 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From an unrecorded airport to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21FA007
- 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 S35
- 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
- N4444K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 56 years (built 1964)
- 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 · climb to 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 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane departed on a visual flight rules cross-country flight from a high-elevation (9,078 ft mean sea level) airport. Automated dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data showed that the airplane proceeded east into a box canyon with rising terrain. The data showed that, before entering the box canyon, the airplane did not climb toward the west, where there was lower terrain. The data also showed that the airplane was in a gradual climb for about 8 miles into the canyon and that the airplane then made a right turn to the south just before impacting terrain. No known radio distress calls were received from the pilot. The airplane wreckage showed evidence of a nearly vertical impact.
Postaccident examination found no preimpact anomalies with the airframe, engine, flight controls, and propeller. Flight control continuity was confirmed from the cockpit to all flight control surfaces.
The elevation of the accident site was 11,823 ft mean sea level. The surrounding terrain to the north, east, and south was higher than the accident site elevation, with peaks ranging from about 12,000 to 14,000 ft. In addition, the calculated density altitude in the area of the accident site was about 13,604 ft, which would have diminished the airplane’s climb performance. There was no significant turbulence in the area. Thus, the pilot likely turned the airplane toward higher terrain and into the box canyon before the airplane could gain enough altitude to traverse the high terrain, resulting in a loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of control during the climb to cruise flight resulting in the airplane’s impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to not climb to a higher altitude before proceeding over high terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21FA007
- Event ID
- 20201005102094
- Case number
- CEN21FA007
- 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, cause areas. 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: 09b4b2039f3e05a4b751621ac82f7753aa812b238f74b2dd5b2669bf9773de73; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:20:55.771Z.