CHI92FA028 · Piper PA28-236
Piper PA28-236 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92FA028
- 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 PA28-236
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N412GK
- Operator
- Heck, Thomas J III · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT), Wichita, 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 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
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A PRIVATE PILOT WITHOUT INSTRUMENT RATING OBTAINED A WEATHER BRIEF AND FILED IFR FOR A 4-HOUR NIGHT FLIGHT TO A REFUELING STOP. HIS DESTINATION WAS REPORTING IFR AND FORECASTING MARGINAL CONDITIONS ON ARRIVAL, WITH AN OUTLOOK FOR IFR. WEATHER REMAINED IFR THROUGH ARRIVAL, AND HE COMMENCED AN ILS APPROACH TO THE FIELD. WHILE ATTEMPTING TO INTERCEPT COURSE, THE PILOT INITIATED A RIGHT TURN WHICH CONTINUED AWAY FROM THE FIELD AND WAS ACCOMPANIED BY A RAPID DESCENT OUT OF RADAR CONTACT. THE AIRPLANE BROKE UP IN FLIGHT AS RESULT OF HIGH POSITIVE ACCELERATION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, HIS LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL, AND HIS EXCEEDING THE AIRCRAFT'S DESIGN LIMITS. FACTORS IN THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S DISREGARD FOR DIRECTIVES AND PROCEDURES, AND HIS CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92FA028
- Event ID
- 20001212X18423
- Case number
- CHI92FA028
- 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 1991-11-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 65c875758036f25f0be0187b15c9cb6b6455f1bd8259547730f5126aefd5588c; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:28:25.559Z.