CHI90FA174 · Piper PA-32R-301T PA-32R-301
Executive Protection Piper PA-32R-301T PA-32R-301 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) to Lincoln Airport (LNK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90FA174
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Unknown
Piper PA-32R-301T PA-32R-301
- 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
- N43515
- Operator
- Executive Protection
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), Chicago, ILTo Lincoln Airport (LNK), Lincoln, NE
- 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
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT ORIGINATED AT 0151 CDT AFTER THE PLT & PSGR HAD SPENT A DAY SIGHTSEEING & ATTENDED A NGT BASEBALL GAME. BEFORE DEPG, THE PLT RCVD A WX BRIEFING & FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN. OVC SKIES WITH CUMULIFORM CLOUDS & RAIN SHOWERS PREVAILED ALONG THE ROUTE. THOUGH THE PLT WAS NOT BRIEFED ABOUT TSTMS, ONLY WIDELY SCATTERED TSTMS WITH MODERATE RAINSHOWERS WERE FORECAST. WHILE EN ROUTE, THE PLT MADE A TRANSMISSION THAT HIS COMPASS WAS 'SWINGING' & THEN CONTACT WITH THE ACFT WAS LOST. SUBSEQUENLTY, AN INFLT BREAKUP OF THE ACFT OCCURRED & WRECKAGE WAS SCATTERED OVER A WIDE AREA. RADAR DATA SHOWED THAT THE AIRPLANE MADE RAPID CHANGES IN ALTITUDE BEFORE BREAKING UP. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE SHOWED THAT BOTH WINGS FAILED IN POSITIVE OVERLOAD. THE STABILATOR FAILED DOWN & WAS BENT AFT BEFORE SEPARATING FROM THE ACFT. THE REST OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS EXTENSIVELY DAMAGED BY IMPACT & FIRE.
Probable cause
A LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL FOR AN UNKNOWN REASON, WHILE EN ROUTE IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS (IMC) ON A DARK NIGHT, AND THE PILOT EXCEEDING THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT WHILE ATTEMPTING TO RECOVER FROM UNCONTROLLED FLIGHT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: PILOT FATIGUE AND PROBABLE SPATIAL DISORIENTATION OF THE PILOT AND/OR AN INSTRUMENT MALFUNCTION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90FA174
- Event ID
- 20001212X23624
- Case number
- CHI90FA174
- 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: 49b878981ff922f14139a72cd65be79494de03bad259cc2fdfade44095c6e044; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:29:55.012Z.