Henson Airlines Flight 1517
Beech B99 · Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error
From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA85AA037
- 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
- 14 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 14
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech B99
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 99
- 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
- N339HA
- Operator
- Henson Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MDTo Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Became lost/disoriented › Inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Flight/navigation instrument(s), improper use of
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
- Proper alignment › Not maintained
- Unsafe/hazardous condition › Not identified
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On September 23, 1985, Henson Airlines Flight 1517 crashed in Grottoes, Virginia, while on approach to the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport. The two pilots and twelve passengers were killed.
Accident details
Henson Airlines Flight 1517 was a regular scheduled flight from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport. The flight was operated on behalf of Piedmont Airlines as Piedmont Commuter.
At 9:59 am, Flight 1517 departed Baltimore bound for Shenandoah Valley. On board were twelve passengers and two crew members. The crew were Captain Martin Burns III (27), and First Officer Zilda Spadaro-Wolan (26).
The flight was routine until approach into Shenandoah Valley. At 10:14 am, Captain Burns told the Air Traffic Controller that he believed that the plane was too far west of his course. The controller tried several times to reach Flight 1517 by radio to no avail.
The search for Flight 1517 started at 10:25 am. At 6:42 pm, Civil Air Patrol located the crash site 6 miles east from the airport. Flight 1517 struck the southwest face of Hall Mountain at an elevation of 2,400 ft.
Zilda Spadaro-Wolan was the first female commercial airline pilot to perish in an airplane crash in the United States.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The US National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was a navigational error by the flight crew resulting from their use of the incorrect navigational facility and their failure to adequately monitor the flight instruments. Factors which contributed to the flightcrew's errors were:
(1) the nonstandardized navigational radio systems installed in the airline's Beech 99 fleet;
(2) intracockpit communication difficulties associated with high ambient noise levels in the airplane;
(3) inadequate training of the pilots by the airline;
(4) the first officer's limited multiengine and instrument flying experience;
(5) the pilots' limited experience in their positions in the Beech 99; and
(6) stress-inducing events in the lives of the pilots.
Also contributing to the accident was the inadequate surveillance of the airline by the Federal Aviation Administration which failed to detect the deficiencies which led to the accident.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Henson Airlines Flight 1517” (revision 1339298635, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
ACFT ARR FM THE NE, CROSSED OVR THE ARPT IN IMC CONDS & CONTD TWD THE SW TO THE INITIAL APCH FIX (IAF) FOR AN ILS RWY 4 APCH. THE IAF WAS OVR THE OUTER MARKER (OM), 4.2 MI SW OF THE ARPT. AS THE ACFT DEPTD THE IAF, IT CONTD OUTBND TWD THE SW ON AN IMPRECISE TRACK FOR APRX 1 MIN, MADE A PROCEDURE TURN (PT) BY TURNING RGT (WEST), THEN BACK LEFT (EAST) TWD THE LOCALIZER (LOC). INBND HDG FOR THE LOC WAS 045 DEG. RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST DRG THE PT. AS THE PT WAS COMPLETED, THE ACFT ANGLED TO THE EAST OF THE LOC & INTERCEPTED THE 045 DEG RADIAL OF THE MONTEBELLO (MOL) VOR. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT HIT A MTN TOP WHILE IN LVL FLT AT 2400' ALONG THE MOL 045 RADIAL. CLD BASES WERE AT APRX 2000'. NO PREIMPACT PART PRBLM WAS FND. ACFT RDO INSTLN WAS NONSTANDARD, NOT FAA APPROVED; 1 ADF & 2 NAV DISPLAYS WERE IN UNSUIT LOCATION FOR COPLT. RDO TRANSCRIPT INDCD PLTS WERE UNCERTAIN OF GEOGRAPHIC PSN BFR IMPACT. COMPANY PLT EXP REDUCED BY RECENT PLT TURNOVER. BOTH PLTS HAD LMTD EXP IN RESPECTIVE PSNS. HI NOISE LVL IN COCKPIT MADE CONVERSATION DIFFICULT. LACK OF FAA SURVEILLANCE
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Henson Airlines Flight 1517
- Article
- Henson Airlines Flight 1517
- Revision
- 1339298635 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q18148724
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA85AA037
- Event ID
- 20001214X37758
- Case number
- DCA85AA037
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Henson Airlines Flight 1517" (page 43822400, revision 1339298635); merged with NTSB case DCA85AA037 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA85AA037: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA85AA037
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA85AA037: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA85AA037: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA85AA037: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA85AA037: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA85AA037: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Henson Airlines Flight 1517" and NTSB case DCA85AA037, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. 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.