Conroe Aviation Services Piper 601B accident
Piper 601B · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR) to Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW89FA012
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 601B
- Aircraft type
- Piper 601
- 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
- N60819
- Operator
- Conroe Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR), Baton Rouge, LATo Conroe-North Houston Regional Airport (CXO), Conroe, TX
- 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
- 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 object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission; Tree(s)
- 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 › Decision height, below
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Houston, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT COLLIDED WITH POWER LINES AND TREES WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH. THE REPORTED WEATHER IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE ACCIDENT WAS AN INDEFINITE CEILING ZERO, SKY OBSCURED, AND VISIBILITY 1/16 OF A MILE IN FOG. NO PREIMPACT FAILURES OR MALFUNCTIONS OF THE AIRCRAFT WERE FOUND. THE PILOT HAD DIVERTED FROM HIS INTENDED DESTINATION DUE TO FOG.
Probable cause
PILOT'S DECISION TO FLY THE APPROACH VISUALLY WITH OUTSIDE REFERENCE TO THE LIGHTS AND INADVERTENTLY DESCENDING BELOW THE DECISION HEIGHT OFF THE PROPER GLIDE PATH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW89FA012
- Event ID
- 20001213X27245
- Case number
- FTW89FA012
- 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: a59673a5bfb508b8dc63600f523eb9cbaca29c23fab9db2f3a603e4dfae2c073; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:10:27.499Z.