FTW01FA171 · Cessna 205
Cessna 205 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Sundance Airpark (HSD) to South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field (ELD)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW01FA171
- 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
- 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
Cessna 205
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 205
- 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
- N8324Z
- Operator
- George E. Nelson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sundance Airpark (HSD), Oklahoma City, OKTo South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field (ELD), El Dorado, AR
- 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 · descent
- 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
- 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 control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed and was in cruise at 7,200 feet "above the cloud tops," receiving visual flight rules (VFR) flight following, when the pilot stated that he observed "holes in the cloud layer" and, subsequently, commenced a descent. Radar data revealed that the airplane was in a stable descent for 5 minutes. During the ensuing 7 final minutes of the flight, the airplane made multiple "S" patterns and its altitude varied between 3,400 feet and 2,600 feet. Witnesses observed the airplane fly in and out of the clouds and, subsequently, enter a spiraling descent prior to impacting the ground. The pilot received a weather briefing prior to the accident flight, during which the briefer advised the pilot of forecast conditions including, scattered clouds between three and five thousand feet, occasionally scattered to broken clouds between eight and ten thousand feet, a 30% chance of thunderstorms and rain showers, and possible lingering pockets of instrument flight rules (IFR) weather conditions. The closest weather observation facility (15 miles northwest of the accident site) reported broken cloud layers at 2,000 feet, 2,800 feet, and 3,500 feet, and a visibility of 10 miles near the time of the accident. The pilot held a private pilot certificate and was not instrument rated or pursuing an instrument rating at the time of the accident. Examination of the airplane and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have prevented normal operation of the aircraft.
Probable cause
the pilot's VFR flight into IMC, which resulted in spatial disorientation and a loss of aircraft control. A contributing factor to the accident was the pilot's lack of total instrument flight time.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW01FA171
- Event ID
- 20010801X01573
- Case number
- FTW01FA171
- 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, coordinates. 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: e099ab205840c2f7ad7bdb17b50a8a1a970393c151d5a28ce214a7a3dbab8dd7; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:26:12.553Z.