WPR10LA259 · SOCATA TB-20
SOCATA TB-20 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP) to Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA259
- 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
SOCATA TB-20
- Aircraft type
- Socata TB-20
- 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
- N3041Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Springs International Airport (PSP), Palm Springs, CATo Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport (MFR), Medford, OR
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument-rated pilot advised an air traffic controller that he was having trouble descending through clouds. At that point, the controller lost radio and radar contact with the pilot and airplane, respectively. Shortly thereafter, emergency services began receiving telephone calls regarding a possible airplane crash. A law enforcement helicopter could not respond due to the foggy and rainy weather conditions. The wreckage was located later that evening in a forested area. Satellite imagery around the accident time showed the development of an area of convection immediately over the accident site consistent with low topped thunderstorms, which were embedded within a low cloud cover. The accident airplane encountered instrument meteorological conditions when it was lost from radar contact. The flight likely also encountered heavy rain and moderate to severe turbulence associated with the embedded thunderstorms.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate preflight planning and decision to continue to operate under visual flight rules into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in an encounter with an embedded thunderstorm and rain showers and moderate to severe turbulence, which ultimately resulted in the loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA259
- Event ID
- 20100524X74604
- Case number
- WPR10LA259
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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. 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: ce2ae204135cdbbf8b41ada4f28e47005a2da205007bb6870868e9d9c9572415; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:49:36.337Z.