FTW94FA036 · Cessna 152
Cessna 152 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Bowie Municipal Airport (0F2) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94FA036
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Cessna 152
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 152
- 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
- N45968
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bowie Municipal Airport (0F2), Bowie, TXTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); Wire, transmission; Utility pole
- 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
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING AND FILED A VFR FLIGHT PLAN. THE PILOT WAS ADVISED NUMEROUS TIMES THAT FOG WAS MOVING INTO THE AREA. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE COULD SEE THE FOG AND WOULD CONTINUE TO THE DESTINATION. ATC CONTINUED TO ADVISE THE PILOT ABOUT THE FOG AND THE LOCATION OF AN AIRPORT WITH VFR WEATHER. THE PILOT ADVISED ATC THAT HE WOULD OVERFLY THE PLANNED DESTINATION AND DECIDE IF THEY COULD LAND VFR OR WOULD CHANGE TO AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN. THE PILOT REPORTED THE LIGHTS OF THE DESTINATION AIRPORT AND REQUESTED A FREQUENCY CHANGE. THERE WAS NO REQUEST FOR AN IFR CLEARANCE AND THE AIRPLANE MANEUVERED IN THE VICINITY OF THE AIRPORT. THE PILOT RATED PASSENGER HELD AN INSTRUMENT RATING BUT WAS NOT CURRENT. WITNESSES REPORTED FOG.
Probable cause
WAS THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC. A FACTOR WAS FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94FA036
- Event ID
- 20001211X13729
- Case number
- FTW94FA036
- 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 1993-11-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4c426b2992262c063a6dc56a60bdba91b0b0e3c757495abbd55de244a2c22410; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:19:04.992Z.