ERA25LA137 · Beech A36TC
Beech A36TC · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Lancaster Airport (LNS) to Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA137
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 A36TC
- 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
- N347M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PATo Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH), Springfield, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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
The pilot reported that, during takeoff, he heard a loud “pop” and was unsure what it was. He pulled the throttle back, then realized that the cabin door had opened. He thought that he subsequently pushed the throttle forward but was not sure. He noticed that the airplane’s airspeed was not increasing and immediately looked for a place to land. A passenger stated that the front door opened as soon as the airplane left the ground. She stated that the pilot contacted the air traffic control tower and requested a return to the airport, and the front-seat passenger held the door closed. The airplane turned left and started “shaking” before it impacted the ground. A security camera captured the airplane departing the runway and turning left. As the airplane lost altitude in the turn, the wings were rocking back and forth, and the tail was low, consistent with a mush condition indicative of an impending aerodynamic stall. The airplane impacted the ground and a postimpact fire consumed most of the wreckage, including the cabin door. Based on the circumstance of the accident, the pilot likely became distracted by the opening of the cabin door. Review of weight and balance information revealed that the airplane was loaded about 500 lbs above maximum gross takeoff weight, which would have increased its stall speed, reduced its climb performance, and adversely affected its control characteristics. It is likely that as a combined result of these factors, the pilot allowed the airplane’s airspeed to decay to a point where the airplane encountered an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed after takeoff due to his distraction by the opening of the cabin door, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall/mush condition at too low of an altitude to recover. Contributing to the accident was the airplane’s overweight condition, which increased its stall speed and adversely affected its control characteristics.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA137
- Event ID
- 20250310199816
- Case number
- ERA25LA137
- 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: 605bd0d318ce0ddc91991369d76c31d39f0f07799b75db2258cac7f8c4a21ab5; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:42:53.140Z.