ANC04LA022 · Bertrand/Warner Thorp T-18
Bertrand/Warner Thorp T-18 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (KEVB) to Pomona Landing Airport (78FL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC04LA022
- 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
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Bertrand/Warner Thorp T-18
- Aircraft type
- Bertrand/warner THORP T-18
- 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
- N98WB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport (KEVB), New Smyrna, FLTo Pomona Landing Airport (78FL), Pomona, FL
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo private certificated pilot was en route to a private airport to attend a fly-in for homebuilt aircraft owners/builders. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the airplane's point of departure, but instrument meteorological conditions were reported along the pilot's route of flight. A friend said that accident pilot had attempted the same flight earlier in the day, but was unable to reach the airport due to low clouds and fog. Several residents in the vicinity of the accident site reported low clouds, fog, and reduced visibility in the area at the time of the accident. Ear witnesses reported hearing what sounded like a low flying airplane to the east, over a large lake. The witnesses said that as the airplane's engine sound increased, they heard a sudden impact, and the engine noise stopped abruptly. The witnesses consistently reported that they were not able to see the airplane due to very low visibility in mist and fog, and that the accident airplane's engine appeared to be producing full power prior to striking the water. Search and rescue personnel located the submerged airplane wreckage, and discovered the pilot's body inside, still restrained within the pilot's seat.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions, and his failure to maintain terrain clearance. Factors associated with the accident were fog and low ceilings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC04LA022
- Event ID
- 20040330X00385
- Case number
- ANC04LA022
- 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: 89b8eb2ce7aace0482da55a1588107ad021556c6b4899b7524d6d107ca5f98cc; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:34:17.343Z.