FTW86FA073 · Partenavia P68C
Partenavia P68C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR) to Bunkie Municipal Airport (2R6)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86FA073
- 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
Partenavia P68C
- Aircraft type
- Partenavia P68
- 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
- N3832E
- Operator
- Wildlife and Fisheries
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR), Baton Rouge, LATo Bunkie Municipal Airport (2R6), Bunkie, LA
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); Electrical tower (marked); 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 › VFR flight into imc, intentional
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Goudeau, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING INDICATING IMC CONDITIONS EXISTED AT THE POINT OF DEPARTURE AND AT REPORTING STATIONS NEAR THE POINT OF THE FIRST INTENDED LANDING. (THERE WAS NO REPORTING STATIONS AT THE AIRPORT OF INTENDED LANDING). WEATHER CONDITIONS CHANGED TO VMC AT THE DEPARTURE POINT AND THE PILOT WAS CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF ON A SPECIAL VFR DEPARTURE. THE PILOT CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT FOR ABOUT 55 STATUTE MILES AND COLLIDED WITH A 500 FOOT RADIO ANTENNA AT A POINT ABOUT 350 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND. THE ANTENNA WAS ON A DIRECT LINE BETWEEN THE POINTS OF DEPARTURE AND INTENDED LANDING. THE PILOT REPORTEDLY WAS NAVIGATING BY LORAN RADIO. WITNESSES REPORTED THE UPPER HALF OF THE IMPACTED ANTENNA WAS OBSCURED BY FOG WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. WITNESSES REPORTED THE VISIBILITY TO BE ABOUT ONE MILE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86FA073
- Event ID
- 20001213X33546
- Case number
- FTW86FA073
- 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: a9be0fe615a640c25488e3b44acabb7118082ca8bc302a555d2ce554bd36d52c; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:35:45.738Z.