FTW93FA132 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From an unrecorded airport to Ruleville Drew Airport (M37)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW93FA132
- 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
- 1 · 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
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N4689P
- Operator
- Bednar, Gene · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Ruleville Drew Airport (M37), Drew, MS
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT AGREED TO FLIGHT-DELIVER THE LIGHT TWIN ENGINE AIRPLANE TO THE NEW OWNER AS PART OF THEIR SALE AGREEMENT. AFTER OBTAINING A SPECIAL FERRY PERMIT FOR THE VFR FLIGHT, THE PILOT DEPARTED IN AN AIRPLANE EQUIPPED ONLY WITH A HAND HELD VHF TRANSMITTER, AN ALTIMETER, AIRSPEED INDICATOR, AND A TURN AND BANK INDICATOR. AFTER AN OVERNIGHT STOP, WHEN THE PILOT ARRIVED AT THE AIRPORT, THE WEATHER WAS REPORTED AS NEAR ZERO-ZERO IN FOG. AT THE FIRST SIGN OF WEATHER IMPROVEMENT, WHEN THE CEILING STARTED TO BECOME DEFINED AND THE VISIBILITY INCREASED TO BETWEEN 1/4 AND 1/2 MILE, THE PILOT STATED 'IT LOOKS TO BE A THOUSAND FEET' AND CLIMBED IN HIS AIRPLANE. THE AIRPLANE WAS OBSERVED EXECUTING A RIGHT DOWNWIND DEPARTURE, CLIMBING TO APPROXIMATELY 500 FEET AGL BEFORE DISAPPEARING IN THE FOG. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED TREES AND TERRAIN APPROXIMATELY 1/2 MILE FROM THE AIRPORT. WEATHER AT THE SITE WAS REPORTED AS 1/4 MILE VISIBILITY AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND THE ENSUING SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. FACTORS WERE THE WEATHER, AND THE PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY INTO IMC WITH INADEQUATE FLIGHT AND NAVIGATIONAL EQUIPMENT INSTALLED IN THE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW93FA132
- Event ID
- 20001211X12128
- Case number
- FTW93FA132
- 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: 6eeb62681d415426af807c09f071cb1659cc42b80bfdec7f0b3aaf52b7665a4f; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:36:57.621Z.