Beech A36 N57S accident near Fairmont, West Virginia

Probable cause

The pilot's delay in aborting the takeoff, resulting in an overun. Contributing to the accident was the overweight condition of the airplane.

NTSB analysis

According to the pilot, the airplane appeared to accelerate normally on liftoff until about 4 feet above the runway, but the airplane did not want to fly. He stated that the only way to get it to fly was to push the nose down, but he did not want to do that, so he pulled the power off and landed about three-quarters of the way down the runway. He stated that the airplane was performing fine. The airplane continued off the departure end of the 2,859-foot-long runway and struck an embankment. A video recording of the flight revealed that the airplane lifted off in a nose-high attitude and settled back to the runway after the ground roll used about eight-tenths of the runway. Weight and balance calculations were completed using the airplane’s maintenance records and the weights volunteered by the pilot, his passengers, 40 pounds of baggage, and 70 gallons of fuel. The estimated weight of the airplane at takeoff was 3,842 pounds. The maximum allowable gross weight for the airplane was 3,650 pounds.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for ERA09LA530 for the full record.