MKC88FA023 · Cessna 180
Cessna 180 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC) to Fremont Municipal Airport (FET)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC88FA023
- 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
- 2 · 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 180
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 180
- 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
- N46TD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC), Kansas City, MOTo Fremont Municipal Airport (FET), Fremont, 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
- 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
- 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
- Guy wire
- 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 › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO WITNESSES ON THE GROUND, THE AIRCRAFT WAS FLYING LOW, UNDER THE OVERCAST, WHEN THE LEFT WING STRUCK THE GUY WIRES OF A TV TOWER AND THE PLANE CRASHED OUT OF CONTROL. IT WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT FORCES AND A POST-CRASH FIRE. WEATHER STATIONS IN THE AREA WERE REPORTING LOW IFR CONDITIONS WITH SKIES OBSCURED AND A LIGHT DRIZZLE AND FOG. THERE IS NO RECORD OF THE INSTRUMENT-RATED PILOT HAVING REQUESTED AN IFR CLEARANCE. A COMPLETE TEARDOWN AND INSPECTION WAS CONDUCTED ON THE ACCIDENT ENGINE. NO EVIDENCE COULD BE FOUND TO SUGGEST A PREEXISTING DISCREPANCY THAT WOULD HAVE CAUSED A POWERPLANT FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC88FA023
- Event ID
- 20001213X32756
- Case number
- MKC88FA023
- 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: 6c0aeca5ec6df7b71933940acf0259bb2ba523a9754c85e23b590da5ad3922b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:52:50.953Z.