ATL05LA137 · Cessna T210
Western Air Cessna T210 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Baraboo Wisconsin Dells Regional Airport (KDLL) to Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (KMSL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05LA137
- 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 T210
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 210
- 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
- N9501Y
- Operator
- Western Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baraboo Wisconsin Dells Regional Airport (KDLL), Baraboo Wiscons, WITo Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (KMSL), Muscle Shoals, 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting to enter the traffic pattern when the accident occurred. A witness heard the pilot report four miles east of the airport requesting local weather information. The pilot also talked to the witness, who was in the traffic pattern, and advised the witness that he would be entering right traffic for runway 29. The pilot was on a base for runway 29 when the airplane collided with a 161 KV transmission line approximately 95 feet above the ground. The airplane fell to the ground and burst into flames. Tennessee Valley Authority reported an interruption at 1650 on the transmission lines in the area of the accident. Examination of the wreckage revealed the airplane collided with the ground two miles southeast of Muscle Shoals Airport, in a planted field. The wreckage was located 200 yards west of the transmission lines. Wreckage debris was scattered over an area about 70 feet long and 40 feet wide, and orientated on a westerly heading. The post-accident examination of the airplane failed to disclose a mechanical problem or component failure.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout, and failure to maintain clearance, which resulted in an in flight collision with a transmission wire.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05LA137
- Event ID
- 20050815X01243
- Case number
- ATL05LA137
- 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: f79755a08be64742309c4a3223ba2b2e2d95c9ac618acbb8a68bc946c63e12b8; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:57:39.217Z.