CHI84FA180 · Colonial C-2
Colonial C-2 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid while maneuvering
From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW) to LITTLE SISSABA, WI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI84FA180
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Colonial C-2
- Aircraft type
- Colonial C-2
- 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
- N281B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kenosha Regional Airport (ENW), Kenosha, WITo LITTLE SISSABA, WI
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, misjudged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Stone Lake, WI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD FLOWN TO LITTLE SISSABAGAMA LAKE WHERE HE OWNED A CABIN. A WITNESS HAD OBSERVED THE LAST 3 MINS OF FLT BUT NOT THE ACTUAL IMPACT WITH THE WATER. THE ACFT WAS LATER FOUND INVERTED IN 15 FT OF WATER 300 FT FROM A SHORE. PLT WAS FOUND 150 FT FROM THE SHORE & THE CAUSE OF DEATH WAS DROWNING. THE WITNESS OBSERVED THE ACFT IN A WIDE GRADUALLY DESCENDING LEFT TURN AROUND AN ISLAND. THE ENG SOUND WAS 'NORMALLY LOUD. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE ENG SOUND DECREASED MOMENTARILY, THEN STOP. THE LEFT WING FLOAT HAD SEPARATED FROM THE WING. THE HORIZONTAL STABILIZER TRIM TABS WERE ABOUT 3 DEG NOSE UP, A NEAR-CRUISE SETTING. ACCORDING TO THE CFI WHO HAD CHECKED OUT THE PLT IN THE ACFT, THE PLT, WHO WAS A B-727 AIRLINE CAPTAIN, HAD DIFFICULTY JUDGING SURFACE WIND DIRECTION FOLLOWING A LOW PASS OVER THE WATER.' WINDS IN THE AREA ARE UNPREDICTABLE DUE TO THE SEVERAL ISLANDS ON THE LAKE. IT WAS RAINING AT THE TIME & WAVE HEIGHT WAS ABOUT 1 FT. THE WATER TEMP WAS 42 DEG F.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI84FA180
- Event ID
- 20001214X39492
- Case number
- CHI84FA180
- 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: af22fb96bd6f1f07cf636a72bb976159b7fd359b2e1ce9516f0b6f596008a823; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:32:53.800Z.