CHI87FA009 · Cessna 441
Cessna 441 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Dupage Airport (DPA) to Cuyahoga County Airport (CGF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87FA009
- 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
Cessna 441
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 441
- 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
- N241FW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dupage Airport (DPA)To Cuyahoga County Airport (CGF), Cleveland, 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Descent, not corrected
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT (A PART TIME EMPLOYEE OF THE OWNER) WAS FERRYING THE ACFT FOR MAINTENANCE. WITNESSES, WHO SAW THE PLT BFR TAKE- OFF, NOTED THAT HIS SPEECH WAS SLURRED & THAT HE SEEMED ANGRY BECAUSE A TUG WOULD NOT START. ONE WITNESS CHARACTERIZED HIM AS BEING 'VERY MAD' & SAID HIS FACE WAS 'FLUSHED RED.' THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED TO TAKEOFF IN A HI NOSE-UP ATTITUDE & CLIMB ABOUT 500 TO 1000 FT BFR TURNING TO THE SW & LEVELING. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE PLANE TURNED BACK TOWARD THE ARPT, THEN IT CRASHED & BURNED APRX 1-1/2 MI SSW OF THE ARPT WHILE ON A HDG OF NE. IMPACT OCCURRED WHILE THE ACFT WAS DSCNDG IN A SLIGHTLY LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE. THE WRECKAGE WAS SCATTERED OVER AN AREA THAT WAS APRX 600 FT LONG & ABOUT 45 FT WIDE AT THE WIDEST POINT. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE ENGS WERE OPERATING NORMALLY WHEN THE ACFT CRASHED. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS FND. A TOXICOLOGY CHECK OF THE PLT'S LIVER TISSUE FLUID SHOWED AN ALCOHOL LVL OF 0.226%.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87FA009
- Event ID
- 20001213X34929
- Case number
- CHI87FA009
- 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: 3767c245764622246c93e91ec532b2eeed92c2432233309b58a99591857d931c; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:21:30.681Z.