CHI98FA099 · Cessna T210L
Cessna T210L · Accident: in flight encounter with weather
From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP) to French Lick Municipal Airport (FRH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98FA099
- 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
Cessna T210L
- 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
- N2546S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP), Indianapolis, INTo French Lick Municipal Airport (FRH), French Lick, IN
- 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
- Unknown
- 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); Tree(s)
- 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated pilot departed Indianapolis, IN, for French Lick, IN, to pick up passengers. The airplane crashed 12 miles northwest of the intended destination. The wreckage was located the following afternoon in a wooded area near the crest of a hill. Local weather at the time of the accident was reported to be 100 foot overcast with 1/8 mile visibility due to fog. The aircraft initially contacted 25-30 foot high trees and the wreckage distribution was observed to be 500-600 feet in length. Toxicological examination of samples from the pilot revealed The toxicological examination of the specimens taken revealed: 193 ug/ml Diazepam was detected in blood, 212 ug/ml Nordiazepam was detected in the blood, 1.2 ug/ml Acetaminophen was detected in blood, Temazepam was detected in blood, Buspirone was detected in blood, Oxymetazoline was detected in blood, Nordiazepam was detected in urine, Temazepam was detected in urine, Oxazepam was detected in urine, Buspirone was detected in urine, Oxymetazoline was detected in urine, 125.2 ug/ml Acetaminophen was detected in urine, Diazepam is a prescription tranquilizer commonly used to treat anxiety or muscle spasms. Nordiazepam, temazepam, and oxazepam are metabolites of diazepam. Buspirone is a prescription tranquilizer used to treat anxiety. Oxymetazoline is a common ingredient used in over-the-counter nasal decongestants and eye drops. Acetaminophen is an over-the-counter painkiller and fever reducer. Broken prescription bottles and a pill container were located in the wreckage along with numerous pills. According to the Federal Aviation Administration Great Lakes Region Medical Division, pilots are prohibited from operating aircraft while taking Diazepam and/or Buspirone.
Probable cause
The pilot's attempted VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions and his subsequent failure to maintain clearance with trees. Contributing factors were the pilot's impairment from prescription drugs, low ceilings, fog, trees, and hilly terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98FA099
- Event ID
- 20001211X09632
- Case number
- CHI98FA099
- 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: 5b1173890d1d46949745d66f7f976524d597b500e1f31193605c9f789431a861; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:39:57.708Z.