Beechcraft V35 N5438U

Summary

On 18 September 2019 at about 11:31 local time, a Beechcraft V35 registered N5438U was involved in an accident near London, Ohio, United States. One person was on board and one died. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

18 September 2019 at 11:31

Classification

Accident

Location

London, Ohio, United States

Nearest airport

Madison County (UYF)

Coordinates

39.9322, -83.4706

Aircraft

Beechcraft V35

Registration

N5438U

Category

Airplane

Year built

1967

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Piqua → London

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CEN19FA323

1 person died.

The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering toward the final leg of the traffic pattern and facing the rising sun, which resulted in a subsequent aerodynamic stall at too low an altitude to recover.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

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.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.