CHI98FA107 · Beech A-36
Beech A-36 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) to Aurora Municipal Airport (ARR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98FA107
- 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
- 4 · 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
Beech A-36
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft A-36
- 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
- N1812A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KYTo 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, performed
- Weather condition › Icing conditions
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Lebanon, IN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The weather brief to the pilot indicated an Airmet was in effect for 'occasional to moderate rime or mixed icing along the entire route of flight.' The briefer reported to the pilot, '... what you'll be encountering affecting your route of flight is the wrap-around effect on that low pressure.' At 1949, the pilot requested to descend from 4,000 feet to 3,000 msl. At 1952, the pilot reported the airplane was accumulating ice, but did not think he could shed it. He requested to deviate to Terre Haute. The airplane was cleared to descend to 2,500 feet msl. At 2001, the pilot reported losing airspeed and requested to land at a closer airport. While on approach, the pilot reported, 'Heck, we're all over the place right now....' The airplane impacted a farm field at night, at a shallow angle of descent, with the landing gear down. The airplane wings impacted trees and the airplane was destroyed by fire. Engine and flight control continuity were confirmed.
Probable cause
The pilot's flight into known icing conditions. Contributing factors were the degraded aircraft performance, the pilot's inability to maintain the proper descent rate, trees, and the dark night condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98FA107
- Event ID
- 20001211X09634
- Case number
- CHI98FA107
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1998-03-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a50a671e07408b4661608ed3c066ea80e2a15eadb29b89d1dfc3339e784c90c7; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:39:03.743Z.