CHI98LA253 · Cameron A105
Cameron A105 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA253
- 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
- 0 · 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
Cameron A105
- Aircraft type
- Cameron A105
- Category
- Balloon
- 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
- N1601A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Improper decision
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Howell, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he had obtained two weather briefings from the Lansing Flight Service Station, one at 1430 and the second at 1745. The forecast indicated the winds to be 240 degrees at 10 knots until 2000 and then 220 degrees at 5 knots until 2200 with no convective activity for his flight area. The flight departed from Howell at 1930 with winds from the west at 8 knots. As the flight progressed, the pilot noticed dark clouds moving south towards his position. Approximately 15 minutes into the flight, he decided to find a place to land. At 300' agl, the wind changed to 180 degrees at 20 knots. The pilot said that he then noticed power lines in his new flight direction and elected to land in a soybean field rather than attempt to fly over them. He reported that he landed hard and was dragged approximately 100' at 15-20 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to visually recognize hazards associated with meteorological phenomenon. A contributing factor was the weather condtion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA253
- Event ID
- 20001211X10506
- Case number
- CHI98LA253
- 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, damage. 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: ff0eb9d65689f1dad5823d49fbc3c3d285de46fc583247cad7eafbf2453c5c70; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:23:48.518Z.