FTW84FA047 · Aero Commander 520
Aero Commander 520 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC) to Tucson International Airport (TUS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW84FA047
- 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
- 2 · 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
Aero Commander 520
- Aircraft type
- Aero Commander 520
- 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
- N4116B
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tucumcari Municipal Airport (TCC), Tucumcari, NMTo Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, AZ
- 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 · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT WAS ON FERRY FLT FROM BARTLESVILLE, OK TO ONTARIO, CA. AN EN ROUTE STOP WAS MADE AT TUCUMCARI, NM, WHERE THE ACFT WAS REFUELED & 14 QTS OF OIL WAS ADDED TO THE LEFT ENG. THE LINE BOY WHO SERVICED THE ACFT SAW NO VISIBLE OIL LEAKS OR SPILLAGE AROUND THE ENG. WHILE ON THE NEXT LEG OF THE FLT, THE ACFT CRASHED NEAR INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 40. TWO WITNESSES THAT SAW THE CRASH STATED RAIN WAS FALLING, THE WIND WAS BLOWING VERY STRONG & THERE WERE LOW CEILINGS. REPORTEDLY, A SQUALL LINE WAS MOVING THRU THE AREA & THERE WAS MODERATE TO SEVERE TURBULENCE. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THE ACFT HAD CRASHED IN A STEEP NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE, WITH 20 TO 30 DEG LEFT BANK & AT HIGH SPEED. NO PREIMPACT, MECHANICAL FAILURES WERE FOUND & BOTH ENGS HAD EVIDENCE THAT THEY WERE OPERATING DURING IMPACT. THE WX BRIEFER SAID THE PLT INDICATED HE WOULD FLY AROUND THE AREA OF PRECIPITATION & REMAIN VFR. RADAR INFO SHOWED THE PLT HAD BEEN FOLLOWING THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY & VARYING HIS ALT BETWEEN 7900 & 6300 FT MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW84FA047
- Event ID
- 20001214X45049
- Case number
- FTW84FA047
- 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 1983-11-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 920ab4ae3baa875427e5759fe0d69c635860320ff1252bbd67f1e7b5983b93b7; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:55:08.747Z.