CEN21LA167 · Beech 35
Beech 35 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA167
- 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
- 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 35
- 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
- N3953N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 74 years (built 1947)
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and flight instructor were conducting an approach and landing following a simulated loss of engine power in gusting wind conditions. One witness stated that the airplane was descending from the north and appeared to be slow. It pulled up right before it hit trees, then “flipped” and hit the ground upright. Another witness saw the airplane at low altitude near the airport. He stated that the nose was up in the air and the tail barely cleared the power lines along the road. After crossing the road, the airplane pitched up and banked to the right. The right wing hit trees and the airplane descended out of sight.
A review of weather information revealed gusting wind conditions and thermal activity. An encounter with a thermal, with associated turbulence or a downdraft, was possible given the synoptic conditions and observations.
The recorded engine data revealed that the engine was operating at a low power setting, similar to idle, and no anomalies were noted. The airplane wreckage was sold for salvage and scrap before examination, and flight control continuity could not be confirmed.
Based on the pilot and witness statements, it is likely that, during the simulated loss of engine power, the pilots failed to maintain adequate airspeed during the landing approach in gusting wind conditions and exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control.
Probable cause
The pilots’ failure to maintain adequate airspeed during a simulated power-off approach in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, an aerodynamic stall, and loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA167
- Event ID
- 20210327102810
- Case number
- CEN21LA167
- 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: 18876f36c6b3362023d561e71c7d52696ccbe27c9175c87f4bd16740c7241c55; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:52:33.953Z.