FTW89FA172 · Cessna 210D
Cessna 210D · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Bell Training Facility Heliport (3XS7) to LA08
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW89FA172
- 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 210D
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N3962Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bell Training Facility Heliport (3XS7), Houston, TXTo LA08
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, disregarded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Covington, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PILOT RECEIVED PREFLIGHT AND EN ROUTE WEATHER BRIEFINGS WHICH INDICATED THAT VFR WAS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE NIGHT CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT TO HIS DESTINATION. WEATHER AT THE DESTINATION AIRPORT WAS LOW CEILINGS AND FOG WITH ABOUT 1/2 MILE VISIBILITY. THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED TREES AT THE 85' LEVEL WHILE IN A DESCENDING, WINGS LEVEL ATTITUDE. IMPACT OCCURRED ABOUT 3/4 OF A MILE FROM THE AIRPORT. THE PILOT HAD A TOTAL OF 14 HOURS NIGHT TIME AND 2 HOURS OF HOOD TIME. THE INVESTIGATION DID NOT REVEAL ANY EVIDENCE OF PRE-IMPACT FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE AIRPLANE, POWERPLANT, OR THEIR ASSOCIATED SYSTEMS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S DISREGARD OF THE WEATHER INFORMATION PROVIDED DURING TWO BRIEFINGS AND HIS DECISION TO CONTINUE VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC CONDTIONS. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT'S LACK OF NIGHT AND INSTRUMENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW89FA172
- Event ID
- 20001213X29371
- Case number
- FTW89FA172
- 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 1989-09-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5b76e1285da60fe7dc0be0639a197e2bcbf290ba8c4872b20a6b593e2ad231f4; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:08:27.370Z.