FTW92FA045 · Beech C23
Central Flying Service Beech C23 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From M89 · ARKADEPLPHIA, AR to Almyra Municipal Airport (M73)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92FA045
- 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
- 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
Beech C23
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 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
- N6012C
- Operator
- Central Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M89 · ARKADEPLPHIA, ARTo Almyra Municipal Airport (M73), ALMYRA, AR
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED IN AN OPEN FIELD ABOUT 1/2 MILE SOUTHEAST OF THE AIRPORT IN A LEFT WING LOW, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. A GROUND WITNESS, WHO WAS A PILOT, STATED THAT HE HEARD THE AIRPLANE'S ENGINE ACCELERATE AND ENTER A LEFT TURN JUST PRIOR TO IMPACT. THE WITNESS LIVED ABOUT 200 YARDS FROM WHERE IMPACT OCCURRED. THE AIRPORT WHERE THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED WAS ABOUT TEN MILES SOUTH OF THE PILOT'S INTENDED DESTINATION. THE WEATHER AND LIGHT CONDITIONS AT THE TIME WERE THICK FOG WITH ABOUT 1/8 MILE VISIBILITY AND DARK NIGHT. DURING THE WEATHER BRIEFING THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PILOT WAS ADVISED THAT VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED AND THAT SHE SHOULD CALL BACK PRIOR TO DEPARTURE. THE PILOT DID NOT CALL BACK. THE PILOT HAD A TOTAL OF 14 HOURS NIGHT TIME AND 3 HOURS SIMULATED INSTRUMENT TIME. IT WAS NOT DETERMINED IF THE PILOT HAD LANDED AT THE ACCIDENT AIRPORT OR IF SHE HAD JUST MADE A LOW PASS. TOTAL ETE FOR THE FLIGHT WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT 47 MINUTES. TOTAL ELAPSED TIME FROM TAKEOFF TO THE ACCIDENT WAS 1 HOUR AND 42 MINUTES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S ATTEMPT TO LAND IN IMC CONDITIONS AND HER SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF CONTROL DURING CLIMB OUT DUE TO SPATIAL DISORIENTATION. A FACTOR WAS THE PILOT'S DISREGARD OF THE PRE-FLIGHT WEATHER BRIEFING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92FA045
- Event ID
- 20001212X18593
- Case number
- FTW92FA045
- 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 1991-12-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6d8b8526931fe51fa8d199b09637f1a6625b098d19d22654d92fc5cdfa87fc02; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:26:57.866Z.