CHI98FA344 · Cessna A185F
Cessna A185F · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Richard I Bong Memorial Airport (SUW) to Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98FA344
- 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
Cessna A185F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 185
- 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
- N888KS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richard I Bong Memorial Airport (SUW), Superior, WITo Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB), Green Bay, WI
- 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 object
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on a flight to attend a business meeting. The overdue flight was located 22 days later after an extensive search. The aircraft impacted trees, traveled 165 feet before coming to rest at an elevation of 1,800 feet MSL. Local authorities reported the weather in the area near the accident on the morning of the accident as consisting of fog and light rain. Examination of the wreckage did not disclose any evidence of mechanical malfunction. The toxicological examination revealed the following: 6.24 ug/ml Diphenhydramine detected in the liver, 0.208 ug/ml Paroxetine detected in the muscle, and 24.4 ug/ml Paroxetine detected in the liver. Diphenhydramine is an antihistamine commonly used in over-the counter cold/allergy medications. Paroxetine is a prescription antidepressant which is also used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic attacks.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate altitude/clearance with trees. Contributing factors were fog, rain showers, and the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98FA344
- Event ID
- 20001211X10788
- Case number
- CHI98FA344
- 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: 91b7862b39c6f3e20a46358ff363e6bd4e2818aa98b9b97a9d8ead089fcaea2c; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:28:34.081Z.