MKC90FA082 · Piper PA-31-350
Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF) to Nevada Regional Medical Center Heliport (MO20)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC90FA082
- 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
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N6KG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Springfield Branson National Airport (SGF), Springfield, MOTo Nevada Regional Medical Center Heliport (MO20), MT VERNON, MO
- 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
- 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, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUMENT-RATED PLT DEPARTED SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI AT NIGHT ON A VFR FLT TO MT VERNON, MISSOURI. AFTER TAKING OFF FROM RWY 20, A RIGHT TURN WAS MADE FOR A CLIMB TO 3000 FT. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, TOWER PERSONNEL LOST RADAR CONTACT WITH THE ACFT & NOTIFIED THE FAA RGNL OPN CENTER. THE ACFT CRASHED ABOUT 7 MI SW OF THE ARPT. A WITNESS RPRTD SEEING AN ACFT DSCND OUT OF LOW CLOUDS IN THE AREA, BUT DID NOT SEE THE ACTUAL CRASH. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT CRASHED ON AN EASTERLY HEADING, WHILE AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED. IMPACT OCCURRED IN A LEFT WING DOWN, NOSE LOW ATTITIDE. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND. ALSO, NO RECORD OF A PREFLIGHT WX BRIEFING WAS FND.
Probable cause
INADVERTENT FLIGHT BY THE PILOT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC), AND HIS SPATIAL DISORIENTATION, WHICH RESULTED IN LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE WEATHER EVALUATION, DARKNESS, LOW CEILING, AND FOG.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC90FA082
- Event ID
- 20001212X22981
- Case number
- MKC90FA082
- 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 1990-04-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a9ea7e3fd0e0ccd993499b31c62504113b8e1490adeb0677e0a9e0ba474b4795; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:47:30.724Z.