CHI90FA029 · Piper PA-28-235
Harris Int'L Flying Club Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: fire en route
From Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD) to Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal (BMI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90FA029
- 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
- 3 · 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
Piper PA-28-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9465W
- Operator
- Harris Int'L Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD), Rockford, ILTo Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal (BMI), Bloomington, IL
- 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 · climb to 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
- Fire
- 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
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Inadequate
- Electrical system, electric wiring › Shorted
- Fuel system, electric boost pump › Leak
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PILOT TOOK OFF IN IMC CONDITIONS AT NIGHT; CRASHED 9 MINUTES LATER. WITNESSES REPORTED SEEING THE AIRCRAFT IN A STEEP DIVE, ON FIRE, PRIOR TO IMPACT. EXTENSIVE FIRE DAMAGE INTERIOR CABIN. NO EVIDENCE OF INSULATION GROMMET AT FRAME PENETRATION OF MAIN WIRING HARNESS, OR CABLE INSULATION FROM THIS POINT TO BATTERY. BATTERY BOX BULGED OUT ALL SIDES, BLACK & CHARRED. WING SPAR WEB MELTED AND MISSING FROM WHERE ELECT FUEL PUMP ATTACHES TO SPAR TO RIGHT SIDE WING ATTACH POINT. ALUM WIRING REPLACED DURING LAST ANNUAL 4/29/89. LOG SHEET ENTRY 11/18/89 'BAD GAS SMELL!'.
Probable cause
IN-FLIGHT FIRE INITIATED BY AN INADEQUATELY INSTALLED WIRING HARNESS AND PROPAGATED BY AN EXISTING FUEL LEAK WHICH WAS NOT REPAIRED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90FA029
- Event ID
- 20001213X29759
- Case number
- CHI90FA029
- 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 1989-11-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6432bb45ce280dca8e08748d547f599c33688d4afc65f483c0fe72a97f4972bf; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:04:46.217Z.