CHI05LA149 · Cessna 188
Cessna 188 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Hornersville Memorial Airport (37M) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI05LA149
- 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
Cessna 188
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 188
- 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
- N9778G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hornersville Memorial Airport (37M), Hornersville, MOTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 · aerial application
- 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
- Guy wire
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The agricultural spray airplane was destroyed by ground impact and post impact fire after it hit a guy wire of a 1,040 foot radio tower antenna located near the cotton field the pilot was about to spray. A witness reported that he heard the airplane flying in the area and then he heard an explosion. He made a 911 emergency call, and then went outside and observed the tower falling to the ground. The inspection of the airplane revealed impact marks on the mid-span of the left wing, which were consistent with a wire strike. The propeller also exhibited gouging and scraping marks that were consistent with a wire strike. Witnesses reported that the pilot conducted a map study of the area to be sprayed since it was a "sensitive" area due to honeybees and homes near the cotton field that required spraying. The Memphis Sectional Aeronautical Chart the pilot used depicted the 1,040-foot tower. There were three sets of guy wires that anchored the tower. The three sets of guy wires were anchored at 120-degree intervals around the base of the tower. The bases of the guy wire anchors were about 425 feet from the base of the tower. An extra guy wire supported the tower. The anchor for the extra guy wire was located about 729 feet from the base of the tower in the southeast corner field where the tower was located. The FAA Advisory Circular AC 70/7460-1K, "Obstruction Marking and Lighting" advises that a pilot should maintain 2,000 feet horizontal clearance for a 2,000-foot tall tower to avoid all guy wires.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the tower guy wires. A factor was the extra antenna guy wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05LA149
- Event ID
- 20050621X00822
- Case number
- CHI05LA149
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-06-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2cc1b33c4d4fa2d3dc72f7ef4b480c16f625d6c20fd86ceaf15924b728feb3a7; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:00:54.022Z.