CHI01LA076 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Elton Hensley Memorial Airport (FTT) to Alfred Schroeder Field (M66)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA076
- 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
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N6754Y
- Operator
- Benjamin Harrison Trout II
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elton Hensley Memorial Airport (FTT), Fulton, MOTo Alfred Schroeder Field (M66), Hillsboro, KS
- 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 · circling (IFR)
- 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 object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage on contact with a power line and subsequent impact with terrain while circling. The pilot reported no injuries. The pilot stated that the weather briefing indicated tops about 8,000 feet MSL, negative icing reports, and weather at the destination was reported to be VFR with high cirrus clouds. He said that the airplane accumulated about 1/8 inch of rime ice during the climb. He stated that tops were confirmed at 20,00 feet MSL while he was enroute. He stated that he elected to return and the airplane accumulated an additional 1/8 inch of rime ice in the descent. He said he began a circle to land entering a close left downwind for runway 23 and stated that " As I turned final it was difficult to see the runway because of the ice on the windshield." He said that "the airplane struck the top ground line on the towered power lines." The airplane came to rest in a plowed field about 2,000 feet from the runway's threshold. The pilot reported no airplane mechanical malfunction failure with this flight.
Probable cause
the pilot not maintaining altitude/clearance from the power line during the circling approach. Factors were the power transmission wire, the plowed field, and that the pilot's lookout was not possible through the built up ice on the windshield.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA076
- Event ID
- 20010214X00452
- Case number
- CHI01LA076
- 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: 452fc3f9a6a22b0d6747a57aeaec8f8f92fb61868624223aeca6a40799ac82b3; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:11:47.062Z.