ATL87FA243 · Aero Commander 112
Aero Commander 112 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Geauga County Airport (7G8) to Dayton, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87FA243
- 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
Aero Commander 112
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 112
- 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
- N1050J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Geauga County Airport (7G8), Middlefield, OHTo Dayton, OH
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, poor
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON THE PREVIOUS FLT, THE PLT MADE TWO UNSUCCESSFUL IFR APPROACHES BEFORE LANDING ON THE THIRD ATTEMPT. THE PAX- CONFIGURED ACFT WAS LOADED WITH CARGO. THE PLT FILED AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN AND DEPARTED THE ARPT. RADIO CONTACT WAS ESTABLISHED WITH ATC AND THE PLT REQUESTED ACTIVATION OF HIS IFR FLIGHT PLAN. ATC COULD NOT IDENTIFY THE ACFT DUE TO NONRECEIPT OF THE TRANSPONDER. THE PLT WAS ASKED TO RESET THE CODE. THAT WAS THE LAST CONTACT WITH THE ACFT. IT WAS FOUND TWO DAYS LATER ABOUT ONE AND ONE HALF MILES FROM THE ARPT IN A HEAVILY WOODED AREA. UNRESTRAINED CARGO WAS FOUND THROUGHOUT THE FUSELAGE. THE PLT HAD BEEN ASKED TO MAINTAIN VFR UNTIL RADAR CONTACT WAS ESTABLISHED. RADAR CONTACT WAS NOT ESTABLISHED. THE WT & BAL COULD NOT BE DETERMINED DUE TO MOVEMENT OF CARGO. RECOVERED CARGO INDICATED AN OVER GW CONDITION. THE TIME OF THE CARGO MOVEMENT IN THE ACFT WAS NOT DETERMINED BUT BELIEVED TO BE POSTCRASH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87FA243
- Event ID
- 20001213X31707
- Case number
- ATL87FA243
- 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 1987-08-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 26a3a7fd8f88ba22d5cbce0eb401b3787edb6fc055d3080e08fc01ad1d1eaa6c; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:00:45.685Z.