CHI82FA032 · Beech A23A
Air Club Beech A23A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH) to The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI82FA032
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Beech A23A
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 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
- N6940Q
- Operator
- Air Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH), Columbus, OHTo The Ohio State University Airport - Don Scott Field (OSU), Springfield, OH
- 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 › Lack of total instrument time
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of London, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT RECEIVED TWO WEATHER BRIEFINGS FOR A FLIGHT FROM COLUMBUS TO SPRINGFIELD, OHIO. VFR FLIGHT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. THE PILOT TOOK OFF AFTER THE TOWER CLOSED AT 2300 EST. AT ABOUT 2341 A WITNESS NEAR THE CRASH SITE HEARD THE LOUD SOUND OF AN AIRCRAFT ENGINE, BUT DID NOT HEAR THE CRASH. HE REPORTED THAT THE VISIBILITY WAS LIMITED BY BLOWING SNOW IN STRONG WINDS. THE WRECKAGE WAS FOUND ON 1/28/82 ABOUT 1/2 MILE FROM THE HOME OF THE WITNESS. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED IT HAD CRASHED IN A STEEP DIVE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI82FA032
- Event ID
- 20020917X01883
- Case number
- CHI82FA032
- 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 1982-01-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e24877c0da7516018379e17beed6195f41980619ea480321681babf39e19c77f; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:38:33.433Z.