CHI04LA243 · Boeing A75
Boeing A75 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Alexander Field South Wood County Airport (ISW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA243
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing A75
- Aircraft type
- Boeing A75
- 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
- N86600
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alexander Field South Wood County Airport (ISW), Wisconsin Rapids, WITo not recorded
- 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 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, low
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage when it hit a wire over a river and subsequently impacted the water. The private pilot reported that he had given three people free rides prior to the accident flight. He reported that the passenger on the accident flight had requested an aerobatic flight. Both were wearing parachutes. He departed the airport to the west, climbed to 3,000 feet above ground level (agl), and flew aerobatic maneuvers. He reported that he flew to the south, and then he proceeded to fly north over the river back to the airport. He reported that he was flying approximately 40-50 feet above the river when the airplane struck the power lines just as he was about to initiate a climb. The main landing gear struck the power lines and the airplane landed inverted in the river in about 3-4 feet of water. The pilot reported that he had flown over the river going south from the airport "many times." He reported that he was not where he thought he was when the accident occurred. He reported that he thought he was 4 miles south of his location. He reported that the airplane did not have a mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight decision when he decided to fly at a low altitude over the river and failed to maintain clearance from the power lines. A factor was the wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA243
- Event ID
- 20040901X01341
- Case number
- CHI04LA243
- 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: ad0a0af2880713fa6437ae643553bc85126a767f8d30e6842cb9e3e0fedc8f91; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:21:48.058Z.