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FTW88FA044 · Cessna 414A

4 Jan 1988 · Midland, TX, United States

Cessna 414A · Accident: loss of control in flight en route

From an unrecorded airport to Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW)

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Event

NTSB case
FTW88FA044
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
Instrument Meteorological Cond

Cessna 414A

Aircraft type
Cessna 414
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
N6576C
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo Roswell Air Center Airport (ROW), Roswell, NM
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
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, attitude gyro › Disconnected
  • Pilot in command › Attitude indicator, not corrected
  • Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
  • Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH POWER LINES AND THE GROUND SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF DURING INSTRUMENT CONDITIONS. THE ONLY EVIDENCE OF A MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WHICH WAS FOUND WAS THE GYRO FOR THE PILOT'S ATTITUDE INDICATOR WHICH HAD NO INDICATION OF ROTATION AT IMPACT. THE PREVIOUS PILOT STATED THAT HE NORMALLY PULLED THE AC CIRCUIT BREAKER AFTER LANDING, THAT THE BREAKER SUPPLIED VOLTAGE TO THE PILOT'S ATTITUDE INDICATOR, AND THAT HE TOLD THE NEW PILOT OF THIS PROCEDURE WHICH WAS NOT ON THE AIRCRAFT'S CHECKLIST. THIS WAS THE NEW PILOT'S FIRST INSTRUMENT FLIGHT IN THIS AIRCRAFT. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED IN A RESIDENTIAL AREA.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record FTW88FA044
Event ID
20001213X24898
Case number
FTW88FA044
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: edebd71cbe30d047210180d60472eda40015859ce8232735c3878f93f3d60e99; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:51:18.382Z.