FTW94FA191 · Piper PA-25-235
Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From an unrecorded airport to Stephens County Airport (BKD)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94FA191
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Piper PA-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- 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
- N4492Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Stephens County Airport (BKD)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Breckenridge, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUMENT RATED COMMERCIAL PILOT WAS FORCED TO RETURN TO HIS HOME BASE AFTER ENCOUNTERING A LOCALIZED AREA OF THICK FOG A FEW MILES AWAY FROM HIS POINT OF DEPARTURE. THE FLAGGERS AT THE FIELD TO BE SPRAYED CONTACTED THE PILOT AND REPORTED THAT THE WEATHER AT THEIR LOCATION HAD CLEARED. THE PILOT TOOK OFF AGAIN AND ATTEMPTED TO CONTINUE HIS VFR FLIGHT TO THE FIELD TO BE SPRAYED. THE PILOT REPORTED ON THE RADIO THAT THE CONDITIONS WERE NOT AS GOOD AS HE HAD HOPED AND THAT HE WAS TRYING TO FIND A WAY AROUND THE FOG. VISIBILITY IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS REPORTED TO BE AS LOW AS FIVE FEET, AND AS HIGH AS 150 FEET. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT EQUIPPED FOR INSTRUMENT FLIGHT AND THE PILOT DID NOT HAVE ANY RECENT INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC. FACTORS WERE THE WEATHER AND THE LACK OF FLIGHT INSTRUMENTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94FA191
- Event ID
- 20001206X01516
- Case number
- FTW94FA191
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- 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.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 862bd5ba4e963bb49417d1002cb9eeff199e3d22b7bc328c928b1f6a868ed43f; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:07:49.546Z.