CHI91DEX03 · Cessna 320F
Cessna 320F · Accident: hard landing
From Owensboro Daviess County Airport (OWB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91DEX03
- 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
- 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 320F
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 320
- 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
- N6158Q
- Operator
- DR. John C. Roberts · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Owensboro Daviess County Airport (OWB), Owensboro, KYTo 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Proper descent rate, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT MADE A NIGHT VISUAL APPROACH TO AN AIRPORT WHERE THE RUNWAY LIGHTS WERE INOPERATIVE. THE LOCAL PROCEDURE FOR MAKING NIGHT APPROACHES TO THE AIRPORT WHEN THE LIGHTS ARE INOPERATIVE IS TO LINE UP THE AIRPORT ROTATING BEACON WITH THE MARKER LIGHT ON A GRAIN BIN ONE HALF MILE FROM THE AIRPORT, START A DESCENT, AND WAIT FOR THE AIRCRAFT LANDING LIGHTS TO ILLUMINATE THE RUNWAY. HE WAS HIGH ON THE FIRST APPROACH AND EXECUTED A GO AROUND. ON THE SECOND APPROACH HE WAS HIGH AND TO THE LEFT, BUT HAD ESTABLISHED A HIGH RATE OF DESCENT, AND FAILED TO CORRECT FOR THIS CONDITION PRIOR TO GROUND IMPACT 20 FEET LEFT OF THE RUNWAY AT APPROXIMATELY MID FIELD.
Probable cause
EXCEEDING THE AIRCRAFT'S PROPER DESCENT RATE BY THE PILOT IN COMMAND. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE INOPERATIVE RUNWAY EDGE LIGHTS, PROPER ALIGNMENT NOT ATTAINED, IMPROPERLY PLANNED APPROACH, AND INADEQUATE FACILITY MAINTENANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91DEX03
- Event ID
- 20001212X17206
- Case number
- CHI91DEX03
- 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 1991-06-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 71f8e775754cd5db842b3e236c0c0eb33ffcabf69916665688ddb221a5c8fae7; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:06:18.613Z.