FTW95LA224 · Cornelius LONG-EZ
Cornelius LONG-EZ · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA224
- 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
Cornelius LONG-EZ
- Aircraft type
- Cornelius LONG-EZ
- 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
- N111PC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC), Tucumcari, NM
- 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 · cruise
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON A VFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT WITH NO FLIGHT PLAN, THE AIRCRAFT FAILED TO REACH ITS DESTINATION. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED AND THE AIRCRAFT WAS FOUND 4 DAYS LATER. THE PILOT HAD MADE A POSITION REPORT WHICH PLACED THE FLIGHT IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE AT 7,500 FEET MSL. A GROUND WITNESS ON A ROAD AT 7,000 FEET MSL, OBSERVED THE AIRCRAFT PASS AT ABOUT 100 FEET AGL AND A MILE FROM THE ACCIDENT SITE. AT THE TIME OF THE OBSERVATION, THE AIRCRAFT WAS PASSING IN AND OUT OF LOW CLOUDS AND FOG. THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS AT 7,500 FEET MSL. DURING HIS WEATHER BRIEF FROM FLIGHT SERVICE, THE PILOT HAD BEEN INFORMED THAT VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED DUE TO LOW CEILINGS AND FOG ALONG HIS INTENDED ROUTE. IMPACT WAS INTO RISING TERRAIN AND TREES AND ALTHOUGH THE AIRCRAFT GENERALLY DISINTEGRATED ON IMPACT, THE WRECKAGE WAS CONTAINED IN THE IMPACT AREA.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FLYING THE AIRCRAFT INTO IMC CONDITIONS AT AN ALTITUDE WHICH WAS INADEQUATE TO CLEAR SURROUNDING TERRAIN. FACTORS WERE LOW CEILING AND FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA224
- Event ID
- 20001207X03475
- Case number
- FTW95LA224
- 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: 7ad82f2ce33ac2d65d96210eb6b51f8bc864ef5e71d29008b643fe9c22dedc04; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:45:45.293Z.