CHI07FA026 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Illinois Valley Regional Airport Walter A Duncan Field (VYS) to Indy South Greenwood Airport (HFY)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07FA026
- 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
Piper PA-28-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8990W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Illinois Valley Regional Airport Walter A Duncan Field (VYS), Peru, ILTo Indy South Greenwood Airport (HFY), Indianapolis, IN
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Spatial disorientation
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 was destroyed during an in-flight collision with terrain during night visual meteorological conditions. The pilot contacted air traffic control (ATC) after takeoff and requested visual flight rules (VFR) flight following. ATC radar data indicated that the flight climbed to 5,500 feet mean sea level (msl) and proceeded on-course toward the intended destination. About 30 minutes into the flight, ATC informed the accident airplane of traffic in his vicinity. The other airplane was approximately 3 miles ahead of his position, northeast bound at 5,000 feet msl at that time. The accident pilot reported he did not have the traffic in sight. About 2 minutes later, ATC informed the accident pilot that the traffic was about 1-1/2 miles off his right wing. The pilot was also instructed to contact another ATC facility. The accident pilot did not respond to either transmission. The ATC radar track data suggested that the airplane subsequently entered a descending left turn, from a southeast course to a southwest course. The airplane appeared to level off at 4,900 feet msl momentarily, before it entered a descending right turn. The final radar data point was at 4,000 feet msl, which was the floor of radar coverage in the area. The airplane appeared to be in a right turn, passing through a northwest course at that time. The accident site was located approximately 1/2 mile east of the final radar data point. The accident site was located in a sparsely populated, rural agricultural area. The wreckage distribution was consistent with a low-level separation of the horizontal stabilator prior to impact. The examination also revealed that the right aft wing spars were bent upward and fractured at the wing-to-fuselage splice joint. All fracture surfaces were consistent with tensile overload failures. Stabilator and rudder control continuity was confirmed from the control surface to the aft cabin area. The post accident airframe and engine examination did not reveal any anomalies associated with an in-flight malfunction.
Probable cause
Spatial disorientation experienced by the pilot while attempting to visually locate traffic during cruise flight, which resulted in a loss of aircraft control. Contributing factors were the inadvertent overload failure of the wing spar and stabilator, and the night lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07FA026
- Event ID
- 20061127X01714
- Case number
- CHI07FA026
- 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: dd5933b61eea6d432028fdcfe256ebe09792d17ebeaaae3ff93c5d3c2046bd8e; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:59:05.940Z.