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FTW01FA013 · Cessna 210

25 Oct 2000 · Oklahoma City, OK, United States

ByGone Aviation Cessna 210 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb

From OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC) to Spearman Municipal Airport (E42)

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Event

NTSB case
FTW01FA013
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
Unknown
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

Cessna 210

Aircraft type
Cessna 210
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
N9485T
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From OKC Will Rogers World Airport (OKC), Oklahoma City, OKTo Spearman Municipal Airport (E42), Spearman, TX
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
Initial climb
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

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The instrument rated commercial pilot obtained a preflight weather briefing. IMC prevailed for the CFR Part 91 night cross-country flight, and the pilot filed an IFR flight plan. Prior to the takeoff, the pilot received ATIS information November [wind 140 degrees at 11 knots; visibility 10 statue miles; ceiling 500 broken; temperature 16 degrees C.; dew point 15 degrees C.; altimeter 30.02 inches of Hg]. The meteorological conditions at the time of the accident probably included surface winds southeast at 16 knots, cloud bases near 1,800 feet with multiple cloud layers above, light to moderate turbulence above 2,000 feet, and light rain. The runway lights (HIRL) were set to intensity level 3. The single-engine airplane was cleared for takeoff following the departure of an airline jet. Radar track data indicated the jet was at an altitude of 2,000 feet msl, when the airplane was cleared for takeoff. The airplane was airborne at least halfway down the runway, and radar track data indicated a climb profile above the jet. The pilot was cleared to contact departure control, and he acknowledged the clearance. There was no further contact with the aircraft. During the impact with terrain and post accident fire, the airplane was destroyed. There was no complete system found intact. Examination of the aircraft did not reveal any discrepancies that would have precluded operation of the aircraft prior to the impact. The pilot had satisfactorily completed a VFR only competency/proficiency check, and had flown 27.5 hours of CFR Part 135 flights in the accident aircraft. The accumulated PIC flight time in the make and model of the accident aircraft was 56.8 hours (22.3 hours at night). The accumulated flight time during the day in actual IMC was 33.8 hours, in the previous 5 years, of which 3.3 hours (2.4 hours in the accident airplane) were in the last 90 days. The most recent logged flight time at night in actual IMC, prior to the accident flight, was 0.3 hour on July 2, 1993, and 2.3 hours on September 24, 1993.

Probable cause

the pilot's loss of control of the aircraft during initial/takeoff climb. Contributing factors were the night conditions, low ceilings, and the pilot's lack of flight experience in actual instrument meteorological conditions at night.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record FTW01FA013
Event ID
20001212X22150
Case number
FTW01FA013
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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-10-26.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 87ada15e398c3040b9864c78928c352d2f2dc29aef7d4b87d3fd93f2f14733c1; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:48:09.472Z.