Corporate Air Aero Commander 680FL accident
Aero Commander 680FL · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA88FA069
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Aero Commander 680FL
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 680
- 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
- N291NC
- Operator
- Corporate Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE ON A NIGHT IFR CARGO FLT, THE PLT REQD & WAS CLRD FOR A DSCNT FROM AN IFR CRUISE ALT OF 16,000 FT TO PROCEED VFR-ON-TOP. THE LAST TRANSMISSION FROM THE ACFT WAS AT 2106 WHEN THE PLT ACKNOWLEDGED THAT HE WAS FAMILIAR WITH THE TERRAIN ALONG THE ROUTE. AT 2121:51 MDT, RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST AFTER THE ACFT MADE AN APRX 360 DEGREE LEFT TURN & DESCENDED THRU 13,800'. SHORTLY AFTER THAT, THE CONTROLLER TRIED TO CALL THE PLT TO INFORM HIM THAT RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST, BUT WAS UNABLE TO MAKE RADIO CONTACT. LATER, WRECKAGE OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND WHERE IT HAD CRASHED ABOUT 2 MI SW OF WERE RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. THE WRECKAGE WAS SCATTERED OVER AN AREA OF MORE THAN ONE MILE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE LEFT WING & RGT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER HAD SEPD UPWARD FROM OVERLOAD. NO PRE-ACDNT FATIGUE OR PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FND. WX RPRTS & PIREPS INDCD MODERATE TURBC & TOWERING CUMULUS CLOUDS IN THE AREA. APRX 60 MI WEST AT POCATELLO, ID, SNOW SHOWERS WERE RPRTD; 2 TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW FELL ON THE WRECKAGE OVERNIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA88FA069
- Event ID
- 20001213X25567
- Case number
- SEA88FA069
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-04-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9302784c3e551981437056cddcd7ced1cfb7e434f923ac85f58cd8d6c6089e00; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:11:33.755Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N291NC; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.