CHI94LA226 · Cessna T210M
Cessna T210M · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Sartaneja Airport (SJX) to Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94LA226
- 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
- 2 · 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
Cessna T210M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N88XH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sartaneja Airport (SJX)To Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR), Aurora, IL
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT AND PILOT RATED PASSENGER, NEITHER OF WHOM WERE INSTRUMENT RATED, ATTEMPTED TO TAKEOFF FROM AN AIRPORT ON AN ISLAND IN LAKE MICHIGAN. THE AIRPLANE CRASHED IN THE LAKE LESS THAN ONE MILE FROM THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. THE AIRPORT MANAGER REPORTED LOW CEILINGS AND DENSE FOG WITH REDUCED VISIBILITY ALL DAY. TWO PERSONS WHO WERE PILOTS WERE WORKING NEAR THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY AND REPORTED HEARING THE AIRPLANE TAKEOFF, AND MAKE WHAT THEY DESCRIBED AS A TURN TO COME BACK TO THE AIRPORT. THEY HEARD THE IMPACT OF THE AIRPLANE HITTING THE WATER. THE PILOT OBTAINED TWO WEATHER BRIEFINGS FROM FLIGHT SERVICE AND WAS ADVISED OF IMC CONDITIONS AND FOG ALONG HIS PLANNED ROUTE OF FLIGHT.
Probable cause
Spatial disorientation of the pilot-in-command due to flight into known instrument meteorological conditions; factors in the accident were the fog and low ceiling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94LA226
- Event ID
- 20001206X01694
- Case number
- CHI94LA226
- 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: ea1068fc5bb3fa50978cebfc52db63370a9567b12877591322a1254bfa2c48fc; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:05:14.511Z.