FTW90FA062 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Mc Alester Regional Airport (MLC) to Ardmore Downtown Executive Airport (1F0)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW90FA062
- 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
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N9235Z
- Operator
- Roy E. Stiner · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mc Alester Regional Airport (MLC), McAlester, OKTo Ardmore Downtown Executive Airport (1F0), Ardmore, OK
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, initiated
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS 1 OF 3 USED IN A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN IN OKLAHOMA. AFTER LNDG AT MCALESTER, THE PLT WENT WITH THE CAMPAIGN GROUP WHILE THE OTR 2 PLTS STAYED AT THE ARPT & CHECKED THE WX. AFTER THE GROUP RTRND, FLT TO THE NEXT STOP (IDABEL) WASCANCELED DUE TO BAD WX. THE NON-INST RATED PLT ELECTED TO RTRN AT NGT TO ARDMORE, THOUGH HE HAD SAID THE INST PANEL LGTSWERE INOP. HE TRIED TO OBTAIN BATTERIES FOR HIS FLASHLIGHT AT THE ARPT, BUT WAS UNABLE. THE PLT OF N9235Z DID NOT GET ANFAA WX BRIEFING. HE ASKED 1 OF THE OTR PLTS ABOUT THE WX & WAS TOLD IT WAS BAD AT ARDMORE, BUT WAS BETTER TO THE NORTH &NORTHWEST. AFTER TAKEOFF, THE ACFT FLEW NRLY AN HR BFR IT CRASHED NEAR COALGATE. A PERSON, WHO HEARD THE CRASH, SAID THEVIS WAS POOR & THE NGT WAS VERY DARK; ALSO, HE SAID A STORM OCCURRED SHORTLY AFTER THE PLANE FLEW OVER. IMPACT OCCURRED IN A STEEP, NOSE DOWN, INVERTED ATTITUDE. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT WAS FND. THE 2055 CST WX AT ARDMORE WAS IN PART: 600' OVC, VIS 7 MI WITH LGT RAIN & FOG. THE ACFT WAS FND ON A FARM ON 2/4/90 BY THE LAND OWNER.
Probable cause
FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS BY THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT, AND HIS SUBSEQUENT SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: INOPERATIVE INSTRUMENT PANEL LIGHTS, DARK NIGHT, ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, UNRELIABLE FLASHLIGHT, THE PILOT'S VISUAL PERCEPTION, AND HIS LACK OF INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW90FA062
- Event ID
- 20001212X22417
- Case number
- FTW90FA062
- 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 1990-02-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c075590a42348f361b2b506a61775a8b475ed52a9577c3f15089432b12d27220; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:59:42.286Z.