DEN91LA018 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI) to Fort Scott Municipal Airport (FSK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN91LA018
- 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
- 0 · 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-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N6078Y
- Operator
- Parson, Roy G. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI), Abilene, TXTo Fort Scott Municipal Airport (FSK), Fort Scott, KS
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE IFR FLIGHT DEPARTED INTO OVERCAST CONDITIONS AND CLIMBED TO 4000 FEET MSL. THE FLIGHT ENCOUNTERED SEVERE TURBULENCE AND THE PLANE ENTERED A 3000 FOOT PER MINUTE RATE OF DESCENT. THE RIGHT PASSENGER DOOR AND THE LEFT EMERGENCY EXIT SEPARATED FROM THE PLANE, CAUSING DAMAGE TO THE RIGHT ENGINE NACELLE AND WING SURFACE. THE PILOT PULLED UP ABRUPTLY AND LEVELED THE WINGS. THE PLANE 'BROKE OUT' AT 2,500 MSL FEET, WITH WINGS LEVEL AND 'UNDER CONTROL.' ELECTRIC POWER WAS OFF AND THE PILOT FLEW BACK TO THE AIRPORT, LANDED, AND TAXIED TO PARKING WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. THE RIGHT WING WAS CRUSHED AT THE ENGINE NACELLE, THE NACELLE WAS DENTED, BOTH WINGS WERE DISTORTED AND WRINKLED ON UPPER AND LOWER SURFACES. THE PILOT THOUGHT THE DOOR PROBABLY WAS NOT FULLY LATCHED DURING THE FLIGHT AND THE TURBULENCE MADE HIS LEG HIT THE MASTER SWITCH, TURNING OFF THE POWER. THE AREA FORECAST WARNED OF MODERATE TURBULENCE BELOW 10,000 FEET.
Probable cause
AN IN FLIGHT ENCOUNTER WITH TURBULENCE. FACTORS WERE THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE AIRCRAFT PREFLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN91LA018
- Event ID
- 20001212X24604
- Case number
- DEN91LA018
- 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: 8dba9ad472b393b95a4fa56c44d1f8eaa00bcbdfc775f614cfebb68c90fbcfd2; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:10:41.155Z.