MKC86FA151 · Whittman WD (BIGX)
Whittman WD (BIGX) · Accident: fire en route
From Morningstar Field (Y76) to Mason City Municipal Airport (MCW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC86FA151
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Whittman WD (BIGX)
- Aircraft type
- Whittman WD
- 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
- N31637
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morningstar Field (Y76), Des Moines, IATo Mason City Municipal Airport (MCW), Mason City, IA
- 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
- Exhaust system, stack › Leak
- Fuel system, carburetor › Fumes
- Wing › Burned
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES STATE THAT THEY SAW TWO AIRPLANES, ONE SILVER AND ONE RED, CLIMBING NORTHBOUND TO CRUISE ALTITUDE IN LOOSE FORMATION WHEN THE RED AIRCRAFT'S ENGINE BACKFIRED AND THE ANTIQUE FABRIC-COVERED AIRCRAFT STARTED BURNING. FLAMES FIVE TO EIGHT FEET IN LENGTH BEGAN CONSUMING THE AIRCRAFT'S LEFT BOTTOM ENGINE COMPARTMENT AND FUSELAGE UNDERSIDE AS THE PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING AN EMERGENCY DESCENT INTO A SOY BEAN FIELD, ACCORDING TO WITNESSES. THE AIRCRAFT HAD THE FIELD MADE, AND WAS AT APPROXIMATELY FIVE HUNDRED FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL WHEN THE LEFT WING CAUGHT FIRE, THE AIRCRAFT FLIPPED INVERTED, AND NOSED DIVED INTO THE SOY BEAN FIELD WHERE IT EXPLODED ON IMPACT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC86FA151
- Event ID
- 20001213X34262
- Case number
- MKC86FA151
- 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: 13e8f15fc657f53c6babd6631ca2265b17bed46cc4a1c1bbd7c188386a9f71fe; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:29:08.416Z.