Critical Care Medflight Beech C-90 accident
Beech C-90 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Cook County Airport (15J) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93FA143
- 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
- 4 · 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
Beech C-90
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft C-90
- 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
- N90BP
- Operator
- Critical Care Medflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cook County Airport (15J), Adel, GATo 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 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 final 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
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
- Weather condition › Thunderstorm
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUMENT FLIGHT WAS CLEARED FOR AN ILS APPROACH TO THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. WHILE MANEUVERING FOR THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE, THE FLIGHT ENCOUNTERED CONVECTIVE ACTIVITY (THUNDERSTORMS). THE PILOT WAS QUESTIONED BY THE TOWER CONCERNING HIS POSITION ON THE APPROACH COURSE. THE TOWER RADAR PLACED THE FLIGHT'S POSITION 1/4 TO 1/2 MILE EAST OF THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE WAS ON THE LOCALIZER. SUBSEQUENT FUNCTIONAL CHECKS OF THE ILS SYSTEM BY AIR WAYS FACILITIES, FAILED TO REVEAL A PROBLEM WITH THE ILS APPROACH SYSTEM. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH TREES ABOUT ONE AND ONE HALF MILES NORTHEAST OF THE AIRPORT AND ONE HALF MILE EAST OF THE APPROACH COURSE. WEATHER REPORTS RECORDED LEVEL FOUR THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY WITHIN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT. WRECKAGE EXAMINATION FAILED TO DISCLOSE ANY MECHANICAL PROBLEMS WITH THE AIRPLANE. THE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS PROVIDED THE PILOT WITH CURRENT WEATHER CONDITIONS AT THE AIRPORT THROUGHOUT THE FINAL MINUTES OF THE FLIGHT, THEREFORE THE PILOT WAS AWARE OF THE THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY NEAR AND AT THE AIRPORT.
Probable cause
WAS THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ADEQUATELY EVALUATE INFLIGHT WEATHER CONDITIONS WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF CONTROL WHEN THE AIRPLANE ENCOUNTERED A THUNDERSTORM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93FA143
- Event ID
- 20001211X13055
- Case number
- ATL93FA143
- 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: 121ac58e47b74a8184107e2a3bc376100902b0cb5f65722fc268c889d631ead8; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:51:42.400Z.