CHI88FA046 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From Greater Kankakee Airport (IKK) to Southern Illinois Airport (MDH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88FA046
- 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
- 3 · 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
- N40265
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greater Kankakee Airport (IKK), Kankakee, ILTo Southern Illinois Airport (MDH), Carbondale, IL
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, not performed
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER REPORTING THE OUTER MARKER WHILE EXECUTING AN ILS RUNWAY 18 APPROACH IN ACTUAL INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, THE AIRCRAFT DEVIATED LEFT OF THE LOCALIZER CENTERLINE. AT A POSITION APPROXIMATELY 1/2 MILE OUTSIDE THE MIDDLE MARKER AND ABOUT 1/4 MILE LEFT OF THE LOCALIZER CENTERLINE, THE AIRCRAFT DESCENDED INTO A WOODED AREA ON AN EASTERLY HEADING. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED THE TREES AND THEN THE TERRAIN IN A SLIGHTLY LEFT BANK AND SLIGHTLY NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. ENGINE EXAMINATION AND TEARDOWN REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF PRE-IMPACT MALFUNCTION. A FLIGHT CHECK OF THE ILS RUNWAY 18 WAS PERFORMED THE NEXT DAY AND INDICATED THE SYSTEM WAS FUNCTIONING NORMALLY. INSPECTION OF THE AIRCRAFT INSTRUMENTS DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY MALFUNCTIONS. THE PILOT WAS IN CONTACT WITH ATC AND DID NOT REPORT ANY PROBLEMS BEFORE THE IMPACT OCCURRED. ALL PILOT AND AIRCRAFT RECORDS WERE DESTROYED BY POST-IMPACT FIRE. PILOT'S TOTAL INSTRUMENT FLYING EXPERIENCE WAS NOT DETERMINED; OBTAINED INSTRUMENT RATING 1/3/87.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88FA046
- Event ID
- 20001213X24861
- Case number
- CHI88FA046
- 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: 6105033d633a4833fb249338bb546caf93c984d4483112aa3c712afafdb69151; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:50:21.755Z.