MKC87FA169 · Piper PA-24-260
Piper PA-24-260 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From 5C0 · Burlington, CO to McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC87FA169
- 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
Piper PA-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N8975P
- Operator
- Ned J.Lynch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 5C0 · Burlington, COTo McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport (MCK), MC COOK, NE
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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, initiated
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FSS STATED THEY HAD PERSONALLY BRIEFED THE STUDENT PILOT ON THE WX EN ROUTE FOR THIS NIGHT FLIGHT AND TOLD HIM VFR WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. AT THE FIRST STOP, HE CALLED THE CO-OWNER OF THE AIRPLANE AND TOLD HER HE HAD BEEN FLYING AROUND STORMS. AT THE NEXT STOP, HE TOLD A POLICEMAN HE WAS LOST AND ASKED FOR DIRECTIONS. WHEN THE AIRPLANE DID NOT ARRIVE, A SEARCH WAS INITIATED. THE AIRPLANE HAD TOUCHED DOWN IN A CORNFIELD ON THE LEFT WINGTIP AND CARTWHEELED. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, THE WX 18NM EAST WAS PARTIAL OBSCURATION, MEASURED CEILING 100 FT. BROKEN, 1500 FT. OVERCAST, VISIBILITY 3 MILES IN FOG, TEMP. 57 DEGREES F, WINDS FROM 360 DEGREES AT 6 KTS, ALTIMETER 30.12 IN HG. NO RECORD OF THE PLTS FLT TIME COULD BE LOCATED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC87FA169
- Event ID
- 20001213X31884
- Case number
- MKC87FA169
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c011961a1180220ccf19e78ed4e519601471d6907c3c91f1f7524b11a0c82a4e; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:00:58.490Z.