CHI83FA279 · Smith, Ted Aerostar 601A
Smith, Ted Aerostar 601A · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Van Wert County Airport (VNW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83FA279
- 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
Smith, Ted Aerostar 601A
- Aircraft type
- Smith Ted Aerostar 601
- 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
- N727NM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Van Wert County Airport (VNW), Van Wert, OHTo 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 · VFR go-around
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHEN THE PLT ARRIVED AT THE DESTINATION ARPT, THERE WAS CONSTRUCTION ON THE RWY, ABOUT 2500 FT FROM THE APCH END. HE CONTACTED UNICOM & WAS ADVISED THAT THE RWY WAS CLOSED, BUT WAS TOLD HE COULD LAND ON THE GRASS BESIDE THE RWY. THE PLT RESPONDED THAT THE GRASS AREA WAS TOO ROUGH. HE STATED, 'I THINK I CAN LAND ON THE RWY AVAILABLE, THERE SEEMS TO BE ENOUGH LENGTH THERE.' SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED APPROACHING RWY 8 AT AN ESTIMATED 30 FT AGL WITH THE GEAR & FLAPS DOWN. REPORTEDLY, THE POWER WAS INCREASED, THE NOSE ASSUMED A CLIMB ATTITUDE & THE GEAR WAS RETRACTED. THE ACFT THEN ROLLED LEFT, DOVE TO THE GROUND & CRASHED. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION. AN EVALUATION OF THIS MAKE & MODEL OF ACFT REVEALED THAT WHEN THE CG APPROACHED THE AFT LIMIT, & THE FLAPS WERE EXTENDED, THE ACFT HAD REDUCED YAW & ROLL CONTROLLABILITY DURING POWER ON STALLS. THE FLAPS WERE FOUND FULL DOWN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83FA279
- Event ID
- 20001214X43235
- Case number
- CHI83FA279
- 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: c2f952de55d92564fbf9e1b81c5b8c0f285540cd68149e8df04bdd391f8bc0df; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:35:53.055Z.