CHI90MA162 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Bishop International Airport (FNT) to Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90MA162
- 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-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N315RC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bishop International Airport (FNT), Flint, MITo Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK), Akron, OH
- 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 · climb to 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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
- Flight/nav instruments, airspeed indicator › False indication
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Anti-ice/deice system, not used
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, improper
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Pitot/static system › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG IFR DEP, PLT RCVD PROGRESSIVE ALT CLNCS TO CLIMB TO 15,000'. AT 1607 EDT, HE WAS VCTRD FOR 'A GOOD RATE OF CLIMB' THRU 14,000' WITH CLNC TO PROCEED ON COURSE AFTER LVG 14,000' FOR 15,000'. RADAR DATA INDCD A STEADY CLIMB TIL ACFT WAS ABV 13,000'. AS IT CLIMBED FM 13,300' TO 13,900' (MAX RECORDED ALT), ITS SPD SLOWED FM ABT 115 KTS TO BLO 80 KTS. AT 1613 EDT, PLT WAS CLRD TO PROCD DRCT & CHG FREQ. RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT AFTER RCHG 13,900', ACFT DEVIATED FM COURSE & ENTERED STEEP DSCNT. RADAR CTC WAS LOST & INFLT BREAKUP OCCURRED. PIECES OF WNGS & STABILIZERS WERE FND UP TO 1.5 MI FM FUSELAGE. TRAJECTORY STUDY DISCLOSED BREAKUP OCCURRED BTN 6000' & 9000' MSL. EXAM OF FRACTURES ON MAJOR CMPTS REVEALED CHARACTERISTICS TYPICAL OF OVERSTRESS; NO PREEXISTING CRACKS WERE FND. NO AUTOPLT FAILURE OR BIRD STRIKE WAS FND. CLDS WERE LAYERED TO 20,000'; FRZG LVL WAS ABT 12,500'. THERE WAS EVIDENCE ACFT WAS IN OR NR CONVECTIVE PRECIP ABV FRZG LVL FOR ABT 1.5 MIN BFR RAPID DSCNT. FND PITOT HEAT SW 'OFF' & INDUCTION AIR DOOR IN ITS PRIMARY PSN. (SEE: NTLS/SIR-92/03)
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO USE THE AIRPLANE'S ICE PROTECTION EQUIPMENT, WHICH RESULTED IN A PERFORMANCE LOSS DUE TO INDUCTION ICING, PROPELLER ICING, OR BOTH, WHILE FLYING IN CONVECTIVE INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC) AT AND ABOVE THE FREEZING LEVEL. THE PERFORMANCE LOSS LED TO A STALL, THE RECOVERY FROM WHICH PROBABLY WAS EXACERBATED BY THE PILOT'S IMPROPER RESPONSE TO ERRONEOUS AIRSPEED INDICATIONS THAT RESULTED FROM BLOCKAGE OF THE PITOT TUBE BY ATMOSPHERIC ICING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90MA162
- Event ID
- 20001212X23371
- Case number
- CHI90MA162
- 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: 797c995736ec141ec2252f052f72a2a25848f0a3fc0554751845d1974b407d91; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:32:38.946Z.