Loss of Control in Flight · NTSB CEN19FA323
Beech V35 — London, OH
| Date | September 18, 2019 |
| Location | London, OH |
| Aircraft | Beech V35 |
| Purpose of flight | Personal |
| Conditions | Day · Visual Meteorological Cond |
| Phase / occurrence | Uncontrolled descent Collision with terr/obj (non-CFIT) |
| Pilot age | 79 |
| Pilot total time | 2,010 hrs · Experienced |
| Time in type | 2,010 hrs |
| Fatalities | 1 |
Probable cause
NTSB findings
- Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Light condition-Glare-Contributed to outcome
- Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-(general)-Not attained/maintained
- Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
What happened
The pilot was conducting a cross-country, personal flight. He had departed from his private airstrip and was on final approach for landing at his destination airport. One witness stated that it appeared that “the pilot overshot the runway and was banking back towards the east to make another approach.” The airplane banked too steeply and then “dove” toward the ground. He added that the pilot might have been “blinded” by the rising sun “as he banked and looked back east.” Another witness reported seeing the airplane “flying parallel to the highway” with it wings “perpendicular to the ground.” After the airplane flew over the highway, it banked “hard to the left and was too low to recover.” He then noticed a “flash” as if the right aileron had reflected the sunlight and the pilot was trying to bank right to level off but had insufficient airspeed “to correct.”
The eastbound witness also had a dashboard camera, which captured the airplane's landing approach. The video showed the airplane fly east, parallel to the highway, then fly over the highway to the south, bank to the east, and then descend out of sight. The sun was about 2° above the horizon at an azimuth of about 89° at the time of the accident, and given the airplane’s position, it would have been shining directly into the pilot's eyes. The airplane impacted terrain about 520 ft west of the approach end of the landing runway and 50 ft north of the extended runway centerline.
Postimpact fire consumed most of the cabin, instrument panel, fuselage, and right wing. Postaccident examination of the airplane revealed that the main landing gear were down and that the flaps were set to 20° down. There were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the pilot exceeded the airplane’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering toward the final leg of the traffic pattern and facing the rising sun after overshooting the runway, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at too low of an altitude to recover.