Central Airlines Aero Commander 500-B accident
Aero Commander 500-B · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Goodland Municipal Airport (GLD) to Hays Regional Airport (HYS)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI93LA070
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Aero Commander 500-B
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 500
- 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
- N712AC
- Operator
- Central Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goodland Municipal Airport (GLD), Goodland, KSTo Hays Regional Airport (HYS), Hays, KS
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Approach · IFR initial approach
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Company/operator mgmt › Insufficient standards/requirements
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Susank, KS, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED TWO WX BRIEFINGS; BOTH INDICATING ICING CONDITIONS EN ROUTE TO HAYS. IN ADDITION, BOTH BRIEFINGS ADVISED OF A SIGMET FOR REPORTED MODERATE-TO-SEVERE ICING IN FREEZING RAIN BELOW 4500 FT MSL. HE TELEPHONED BOTH DISPATCH AND THE CHIEF PILOT; THE CONSENSUS WAS THAT THE WX HAD NOT DEVELOPED AS FORECAST AND THE ADVERSE WX APPEARED TO BE EAST OF HAYS (1ST LANDING LOCATION). WHILE DESCENDING INTO HAYS, THE AIRPLANE ACCUMULATED ICE RAPIDLY. THE PILOT DID NOT SEE THE FIELD AT MDA AND EXECUTED A MISSED APPROACH. HE WAS SUBSEQUENTLY UNABLE TO CLIMB OUT OF ICING CONDITIONS, AND THE AIRPLANE SETTLED TO THE GROUND WITH FULL POWER. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT EQUIPPED FOR FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ICING CONDITIONS. IT DID INCORPORATE STC SA2573CE WHICH INSTALLS SYNTHETIC RUDDER STRIPS ON THE WING/TAIL LEADING EDGES. THE ANTI-ICING 'SHOES' ARE SPRAYED WITH GLYCOL TO HELP PREVENT ICE BUILD-UP IF ICING CONDITIONS ARE ENCOUNTERED IN FLIGHT. THE PILOT STATED THAT THE OWNER REPRESENTED THE STC AS MEETING FAR 135.227 FOR FLIGHT INTO ICING CONDITIONS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER AND THE OWNER'S REPRESENTATION THAT THE AIRPLANE MET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR FLIGHT INTO ICING CONDITIONS. THE WEATHER AND AIRFRAME ICE WERE FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI93LA070
- Event ID
- 20001211X11672
- Case number
- CHI93LA070
- 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 1993-01-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: acf2d7e44d4f4313f09385caf64d30b6f3c190d69a507fabd1b4a18b916a1dc9; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:41:31.356Z.