FTW83FA175 · Cessna 500
Cessna 500 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Corpus Christi International Airport (CRP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83FA175
- 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
- 4 · 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
Cessna 500
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 500
- 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
- N700CW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Corpus Christi International Airport (CRP), Corpus Christi, TXTo not recorded
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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 › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS ON A FLT TO A PRIVATE RANCH LANDING STRIP AT NIGHT. THE STRIP HAD AN UNLIGHTED WINDSOCK AT MIDFIELD & PORTABLE RWY EDGE LIGHTS WERE IN USE. DURING ARRIVAL, THE AIRCREW ESTIMATED THE VISIBILITY WAS 3 TO 4 MI & REPORTED THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO LAND. PERSONNEL AT THE RANCH HEARD THE ACFT FLY OVER. ONE OF THEM REPORTED THAT EARLIER, THE WIND HAD BEEN BLOWING HARD & THE AIR WAS FULL OF DUST, BUT AT THE TIME THE ACFT ARRIVED, DUST HAD SETTLED. A DEPUTY SHERIFF NOTED THAT AT TIMES, THE VISIBILITY WAS GOOD, BUT AT OTHER TIMES, IT WAS POOR. THE ACFT OWNER, WHO WAS AT THE RANCH, SAID HE COULD SEE THE ACFT LIGHTS AT TIMES (IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN), BUT AT TIMES, HE COULD NOT SEE THEM. AFTER MAKING 2 PASSES, THE ACFT CRASHED IN THE AREA WHERE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON A BASE LEG. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED IT WAS IN A LEFT TURN DURING IMPACT. AFTER INITIAL IMPACT, IT BOUNCED/SLID 663 FT, THEN HIT A TREE COVERED CANAL LEVEE & BURNED. NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT/MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE WAS FOUND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83FA175
- Event ID
- 20001214X42666
- Case number
- FTW83FA175
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-04-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 55da63b2b36ee82f4ed99d80d524f893a2b29056b48f90029454212d1257ff82; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:58:29.482Z.