CHI00LA279 · Mockler ZODIAC CH-600 ZODIAC CH-
Mockler ZODIAC CH-600 ZODIAC CH- · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Anderson Municipal Darlington Field (AID) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA279
- 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
Mockler ZODIAC CH-600 ZODIAC CH-
- Aircraft type
- Mockler ZODIAC CH-600
- 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
- N1156L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anderson Municipal Darlington Field (AID), Anderson, INTo 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
- Tower
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplane was destroyed during an in-flight impact with a tower and with terrain. A witness said, 'I watched the plane fly from North to South over my house. The plane was very low about 250 - 300ft. The engine sounded good and the plane was flying level and not loosing altitude. It appeared under control.' Another witness said, 'Heard a plane low - sounded like an ultra light - watched it circle us saw it was a single engine - it was right over us - heading north and flew right into the radio tower - and tumbled down to the ground - the right wing/airplane parts hung in the tower [and] the plane crashed....' At 0755, the weather was: Wind 110 degrees at 5 knots; visibility 7 statute miles; sky condition few 15,000 feet; temperature 24 degrees C; dew point 21 degrees C; altimeter 30.03 inches of mercury. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector said, 'Due to the extensive damage to the forward structure, some cable attachments were broken, but it appeared that all controls were in operation at the time of the accident.'
Probable cause
the pilot not maintaining altitude/clearance from the tower. A factor was the tower.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA279
- Event ID
- 20001212X21917
- Case number
- CHI00LA279
- 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: 74c7654a47cc95edecaae3130615d1c3b78583ce6385ba348a0ccea652408e74; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:53:52.624Z.