FTW89LA057 · Cessna U206
Cessna U206 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From RED BLUFF LAKE, TX (no airport) to NASWORTHY LAKE, TX (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW89LA057
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Unknown
Cessna U206
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 206
- 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
- N8096Z
- Operator
- Hutton, Eden P. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From RED BLUFF LAKE, TX (no airport)To NASWORTHY LAKE, TX (no airport)
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLOAT PLANE PLT WAS ON A VFR FLT AT NIGHT TO NASWORTHY LAKE NEAR SAN ANGELO, TX. HE CONTINUED INTO DETERIORATING WX CONDITIONS. SUBSEQUENTLY, WHILE CRUISING BELOW THE CLOUDS, THE ACFT IMPACTED TERRAIN AT AN ELEV OF ABOUT 2500' MSL. IN A WRITTEN STATEMENT, THE PLT STATED THAT HE WAS ATTEMPTING TO MAINTAIN 3500' MSL & ENCOUNTERED STRONG DOWNDRAFTS. HOWEVER, IN EARLIER CONVERSATIONS WITH AN FAA COORDINATOR, HE INDICATED HE WAS TRYING TO MAINTAIN A LOWER ALTITUDE (APRX 200' AGL). RPRTDLY, IMPACT OCCURRED AS THE ACFT WAS FLYING AT ABOUT 90 KTS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE ALTITUDE DURING CONTINUED FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER. THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND DARK NIGHT WERE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW89LA057
- Event ID
- 20001213X27730
- Case number
- FTW89LA057
- 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 1989-02-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: caef0a98ecdf3167e2eafb28050bc83ad68997585c05b274f3711bffde34d918; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:17:47.213Z.