CHI06FA232 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Waukesha County Airport (UES) to Chippewa County International Airport (CIU)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06FA232
- 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
- 4 · 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
Piper PA-23-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N133BH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waukesha County Airport (UES), Waukesha, WITo Chippewa County International Airport (CIU), Sault Ste Marie, MI
- 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 · circling (IFR)
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route, about 23 minutes before the accident, the pilot reported that he had the current weather at the destination airport. At that time, the reported weather was scattered clouds at 900 feet above ground level (agl), an overcast ceiling at 3,500 feet agl, and a visibility of 3 miles. At the time of the accident, the airport's reported weather was 300 feet agl overcast ceiling and a 1-1/4 mile visibility. The flight was cleared for the VOR-A instrument approach procedure, circle to land runway 27. According to aircraft radar track data, the airplane descended below the approach's authorized minimum descent altitude (MDA) about 2.6 miles northeast of the airport. The airplane leveled off about 175 feet below the MDA until crossing over the intersection of the airport's two runways. The airplane then made a left turn to the east, and paralleled runway 27 about 600 feet south of the runway. The airplane's last radar return was at 185 feet agl and about 0.5 miles east of the runway threshold. The point-of-impact was about 725 feet north of the final radar return. Numerous witnesses reported seeing the airplane traveling eastbound approximately 150 and 200 feet agl, and then perform a left turn back towards the airport before impacting nose first into the terrain. Several of those witnesses reported that the airplane reached a bank angle of approximately 90 degrees during the turn. The airplane's altitude and proximity to the runway prevented an approach to landing using normal flight maneuvers. A majority of the airframe was destroyed during a post-impact ground fire. Examination of the recovered wreckage revealed no evidence of a pre-impact mechanical malfunction. According to FAA regulations," no pilot may continue below the authorized MDA unless the airplane is continuously in a position from which a descent to a landing on the intended runway can be made at a normal rate of descent using normal maneuvers, the flight visibility is not less than the visibility prescribed for the instrument approach procedure, and the runway environment is distinctly visible and identifiable to the pilot."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the circling approach and his failure to perform a missed approach when the airplane was no longer in a position to land using normal flight maneuvers. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to operate below the approach's authorized minimum descent altitude (MDA) before having the airport/runway environment visible. Additional factors were the low cloud ceiling and visibility.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06FA232
- Event ID
- 20060822X01224
- Case number
- CHI06FA232
- 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: 07321320b7ec8bf2f135f7e1435ec794e1fe29289e58d5c731104224e8c30309; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:05:32.603Z.