ERA21LA053 · Beech V35
Beech V35 · Accident: birdstrike while maneuvering
From Hummel Field (W75) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA053
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N35AW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hummel Field (W75), Saluda, VATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 54 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a personal local flight to test the autopilot system. Two fishermen reported seeing the airplane fly through a flock of seagulls, followed by two birds falling to the water. A third witness stated that he heard a loud noise, then saw the airplane make a left turn followed by two spirals before it impacted terrain. Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical anomalies of the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. No avian remains were discovered during the postaccident examination; however, it is likely that any remains that may have been present would have been consumed by the significant post-impact fire. Based on the witness statements, it is likely that the airplane collided with birds inflight, after which the airplane entered an uncontrolled descent into terrain.
Probable cause
An uncontrolled descent and impact with terrain following an in-flight collision with seagulls.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA053
- Event ID
- 20201124102335
- Case number
- ERA21LA053
- 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, 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: f169853e4df189d19fabb0694c8bd5b76e4eab0ef469d8a74c11e80431edcb4e; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:22:59.982Z.