FTW95FA114 · Rockwell 690A
Rockwell 690A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 3KM · Wichita, KS to Wiley Post Airport (PWA)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA114
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Rockwell 690A
- Aircraft type
- Rockwell 690
- 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
- N69TM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3KM · Wichita, KSTo Wiley Post Airport (PWA), Oklahoma City, OK
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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
- Airframe › Ice
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED TERRAIN APPROX 14 MILES FROM THE DESTINATION DURING A DESCENT. ACCCORDING TO RADAR DATA AND METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATION, THE AIRPLANE DESCENDED FROM 16,700 FEET TO 3,700 FEET AGL THROUGH CLOUDS AND ICING CONDITIONS. DURING THE DESCENT, THE AIRPLANE DECELERATED FROM 268 KTS TO 92 KTS GROUND SPEED. THE PILOT REPORTED TO APPROACH THAT HE 'BROKE OUT' OF THE CLOUDS AT 5,400 FEET. HE SUBSEQUENTLY INFORMED APPROACH THAT HE HAD ACCUMULATED 'SOME CLEAR AND RIME ICE' DURING THE DESCENT. 13 SECONDS LATER THE PILOT MADE A DISTRESS CALL AND STATED, 'WE'RE IN TROUBLE, WE'RE GOING DOWN.' THE LAST RADAR TRACK SHOWED THE AIRPLANE DESCENDING THROUGH 3,700 FEET AT A GROUND SPEED OF 92 KTS. A WITNESS REPORTED HE OBSERVED THAT THE AIRPLANE 'APPEARED TO BE DOING TRICKS', AND 'THEN HEADED STRAIGHT DOWN IN A SPIN.' AN AIRMET FOR ICING CONDITIONS WAS IN EFFECT ALONG THE AIRPLANE'S ROUTE OF FLIGHT. ALSO, THERE WERE SEVERAL PILOT REPORTS OF ICING ENCOUNTERED IN THE AREA OF THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT DID NOT REQUEST A WEATHER BRIEFING PRIOR TO, OR DURING THE FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED DUE TO AIRFRAME ICE, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF CONTROL. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER, HIS FAILURE TO OBTAIN WEATHER INFORMATION EITHER BEFORE OR DURING THE FLIGHT, AND THE ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA114
- Event ID
- 20001207X02954
- Case number
- FTW95FA114
- 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: 1e92c0e0501031ebe021ff91ebc4f23a0abeb5dbd338337f93c83c2ad93579a6; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:51:59.954Z.