CHI00LA014 · Howlett KR-2
Howlett KR-2 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Ottumwa Regional Airport (OTM) to Highmore Municipal Airport (9D0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA014
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Howlett KR-2
- Aircraft type
- Howlett KR-2
- 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
- N7057V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ottumwa Regional Airport (OTM), Ottumwa, IATo Highmore Municipal Airport (9D0), Highmore, SD
- 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 · 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, intentional
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness said the accident pilot had flown with another pilot earlier in the day and flew at a 'lower altitude, in the bumps, where the groundspeed was higher.' The witness said, 'They also mentioned that while down low, after hitting a bump, the ELT (emergency locator transmitter) activated.' The witness stated that on the accident flight the pilot indicated he was going to climb higher, be out of the turbulence, and accept the slow groundspeed. A witness in the Carroll, Iowa area stated he saw the airplane fly overhead on a northwest heading, in windy and gusty conditions, and saw the airplane fly below the top of a corncrib. Another witness saw the plane clear the 25 to 30 feet powerlines by a couple feet. A third witness said the weather was very windy and the airplane flew overhead at 2 tree lengths of 35 feet. At 1825, the weather was: Wind 320 degrees at 14 knots gusting to 18 knots; visibility 10 statute miles; sky condition clear; temperature 10 degrees C; dew point -3 degrees C; altimeter 30.15 inches of mercury. At 1815, the altitude and azimuth of the sun to be -9.2 degrees and 263.2 degrees respectively. Civil twilight was 1858. An on-scene examination of the accident revealed the wreckage distribution was in the northwest direction. The terrain in the accident site rose to the northwest and north. No preimpact anomalies were found. The pilot was fatally injured.
Probable cause
the pilot not maintaining altitude/clearance from rising terrain and the intentional low altitude flight. Factors were the known turbulence, rising terrain, and the inadequate in-flight decision to fly at low altitudes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA014
- Event ID
- 20001212X19925
- Case number
- CHI00LA014
- 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: f70f729ab9d5c75585194d4160134078acd65fccde8f6d919c324fffa03eba5c; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:41:27.950Z.