CHI07CA180 · Cessna 188B
Cessna 188B · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From unknown, MO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA180
- 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
- 0 · 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 188B
- 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
- N4998Q
- Operator
- James F. Wood · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From unknown, 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
- Tree(s)
- 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/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 airplane received substantial damage when it impacted trees and was consumed by a post-crash ground fire. The pilot stated that he circled the airplane around the corn field twice to check for obstructions. The pilot then began his spray run by entering the field over the northwest corner heading east. The pilot stated he was "watching trees on the right, then left" and when he looked forward he "misjudged the distance of the tree line at the end of the field". The airplane subsequently struck tree tops, and the pilot "could not regain control of the aircraft" before it settled into the trees. The pilot stated in his accident report that the accident could have been prevented by identifying all obstructions surrounding and within the spray area and using better judgement before entering the area.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the trees. A factor in the accident was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA180
- Event ID
- 20070726X01022
- Case number
- CHI07CA180
- 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: 541a7ab593f50f46ed80b237339dcb1cbe0c90770d801b383e77e0262bc3a7b0; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:28:32.825Z.