ATL04LA087 · Aircraft MFG & Development Co. Alarus CH2T
Phil's Flying Enterprises Aircraft MFG & Development Co. Alarus CH2T · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From FYY · Marietta, GA to Bay Minette Municipal Airport (1R8)
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
- ATL04LA087
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aircraft MFG & Development Co. Alarus CH2T
- Aircraft type
- Aircraft MFG Development ALARUS CH2T
- 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
- N605AM
- Operator
- Phil's Flying Enterprises
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From FYY · Marietta, GATo Bay Minette Municipal Airport (1R8), Bay Minette, AL
- 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
- 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); Tree(s)
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- 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
Upon arriving at the destination airport the pilot discovered that instrument weather conditions existed. The pilot elected to divert to another airport where weathers conditions were thought to be better. When the visual flight arrived at the uncontrolled airport, the pilot again discovered reduced visibility and foggy conditions. According to the pilot, he attempted two visual approaches to land but executed go-arounds because of reduced weather conditions. However, at about 15 feet above the ground, on the third approach to land, the pilot recalled hearing something striking the airplane, he felt a thump as the airplane collided with trees and the ground. No mechanical problems with the airplane were reported by the pilot. According to the pilot, during the preflight weather briefing visual weather conditions were forecast for the entire flight. The pilot did not report requesting or receiving updated weather data while en route.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate inflight decision which resulted in continued VFR flight into IMC conditions, and his failure to maintain clearance which resulted in a collision with trees. A factor was the fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04LA087
- Event ID
- 20040405X00419
- Case number
- ATL04LA087
- 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: e6fe38489fbed3793f4594b6a324df8b3916d4ab80ac23a681ea04d4ebcafb87; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:18:38.703Z.