CHI98FAMS1 · Aero Vodochody Aero. Works L-39C
Aero Vodochody Aero. Works L-39C · Accident: missing aircraft en route
From Cherry Capital Airport (TVC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98FAMS1
- 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
Aero Vodochody Aero. Works L-39C
- Aircraft type
- Aero Vodochody Aero Works L-39
- 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
- N7868M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cherry Capital Airport (TVC)To not recorded
- 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
- Missing aircraft
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane took off at 1831 edt. At 1844 edt, the tower controller asked the pilot of the airplane for a position report. The pilot replied that he was 27 miles northeast of the airport tracking the 246 degree radial. The pilot told the tower that he would call them again when he got within five miles [of the airport]. The airplane was tracked by air traffic control radar making a turn and tracking due west at 300 miles per hour. The airplane was tracked to a position of 344 degrees at 31.1 miles off the Traverse City (TVC) VOR. Radar contact was lost as the airplane approached South Fox Island (TVC VOR 177 degree radial at 9.6 miles). One minute and 20 seconds after radar contact was lost, a fast moving primary target was tracked to a position 9 miles north of South Fox Island, where the target was lost. A search for the airplane was initiated at 2057 edt. On July 4, 1998, at 2235 edt, search operations were suspended.
Probable cause
Undetermined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98FAMS1
- Event ID
- 20001211X10483
- Case number
- CHI98FAMS1
- 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: a4b078d895b8a0d474664b6b14a8c17628a5b4668eaf05fac245ae27fe2092cc; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:31:13.413Z.