CEN23LA423 · Beech A36
Beech A36 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From McKinney National Airport (TKI) to Jewel B Callaham Municipal Airport (90F)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN23LA423
- 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
- 1
- 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 A36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 36
- 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
- N9379Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McKinney National Airport (TKI), McKinney, TXTo Jewel B Callaham Municipal Airport (90F), Broken Bow, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1972)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 on ground
- 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 › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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
While on approach to land, the pilot watched for tractors that were bailing hay. During the landing flare, the pilot saw an airport grounds worker mowing the grass next to the right side of the runway. He attempted to avoid the worker by pulling back on the control yoke. The airplane drifted to the right, touched down, and the right wing struck the worker, who was fatally injured. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The worker was mowing along the edge of runway, which was 50 ft. wide. The wingspan of the airplane was 33 ft 6 inches; therefore, the centerline of the airplane would have to have been at least 8 ft 3 inches to the right of the runway centerline to place the right wingtip directly over the runway edge. The pilot did not adequately compensate for the crosswind during landing, and the airplane was not aligned with the runway centerline during landing and landing roll, which resulted in the airplane striking the grounds worker. According to the airport manager, the worker was not scheduled to be mowing at the airport on the day of the accident, and he was unaware that she elected to begin mowing at the airport. He was also unaware that Notices to Airmen (NOTAM) should be issued, and no NOTAM had been issued for the mowing or hay bailing operations being conducted at the airport.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain the runway centerline during landing and subsequent failure to maintain clearance from the airport grounds worker during the landing roll. Contributing to the accident was the absence of a NOTAM for mowing operations at the time of the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN23LA423
- Event ID
- 20230929193162
- Case number
- CEN23LA423
- 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: 54cb7401c43ae5579e731953cafd9afc4fab871e3da483cabc3794139ff78154; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:02:47.277Z.