CHI89DEP01 · Cessna T337G
Cessna T337G · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Carter Airport (92C) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI89DEP01
- 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 T337G
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 337
- 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
- N6CF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carter Airport (92C), POLASKI, WITo not recorded
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Flashlight › Inoperative
- Instrument light(s) › Loss, total
- Instrument light(s) › Undetermined
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A FLT AT NGT, THE PLT RPRTD HE HAD LOST INSTRUMENT PANEL LIGHTING, BUT THAT HE HAD A FLASHLIGHT. ABOUT 14 MIN LATER, HE RPRTD HE DID NOT HAVE ANY LIGHTS IN THE CABIN & THAT HE WAS CHANGING FLASHLIGHTS. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CRASHED ABOUT 1/2 MI SOUTH OF THE ARPT. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT IT HAD IMPACTED, WHILE TRAVELING AT HIGH SPEED. THE ELEC SYS WAS SEVERELY DAMAGED BY IMPACT, BREAKERS WERE DESTROYED OR POPPED & THE LIGHT RHEOSTAT SW WAS DAMAGED DURING THE OCCURRENCE. A PENLIGHT WAS FOUND IN THE WRECKAGE WITH DEAD 'AA' BATTERIES. A 2-CELL 'D' FLASHLIGHT WAS FOUND IN A POCKET ATTACHED TO THE REAR OF THE LEFT FRONT SEAT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL, DUE TO THE LOSS OF COCKPIT/INSTRUMENT PANEL LIGHTING FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON, THE INOPERATIVE PENLIGHT, AND SUBSEQUENT SPATIAL DISORIENTATION OF THE PILOT. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS AND THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI89DEP01
- Event ID
- 20001213X27549
- Case number
- CHI89DEP01
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-01-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b6e3b117837ae670f0276f35c4f23646be3f84ed037f9e9a7cdb27506db84373; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:25:14.245Z.