On a November night in 1995, a Beech Baron 58 departed from Runway 24 at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport (KBKL), on the south shore of Lake Erie. It was bound for Raleigh, North Carolina, with five aboard. The Baron climbed to 200 feet above the end of the runway and began a right turn. The tower controller, who had been watching the airplane, turned away. A couple of minutes later, he had a call from a city operations office asking whether he could see smoke out on the lake.
The Baron had hit the water about 6 miles from the airport. The Coast Guard rescued two surviving passengers; the 1,000-hour instrument-rated pilot, 47, and two other passengers perished. The surviving passengers recalled no problem with the airplane or the pilot before impact.
