ERA13FA402 · Cessna T-50
Cessna T-50 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC on approach
From William T. Piper Memorial Airport (LHV) to MSM Airport (PS50)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13FA402
- 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
- 2 · 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
Cessna T-50
- Aircraft type
- Cessna T-50
- 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
- N41759
- Operator
- Huf Thomas
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William T. Piper Memorial Airport (LHV), Lock Haven, PATo MSM Airport (PS50), Lenox Twp., PA
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed at night on the final leg of a cross-country flight without getting an update on weather information he had been provided by a briefer about 3 1/2 hours before the accident. At that time, the briefer cautioned the pilot about instrument flight conditions with ceilings below 1,000 feet and advised him that visual flight rules flight was not recommended throughout his entire flight route due to a convective SIGMET and severe thunderstorm watches and warnings in effect throughout that area. The pilot acknowledged the information and stated that he would "look at weather radar."
One witness, whose home was located 2 miles southeast of the destination airport, observed the airplane flying low in a valley just above the trees and below the surrounding ridgelines. He stated that the sound of the engines was loud and continuous as the airplane flew out of his sight from the west to the east, returned, and then flew westbound just above the tree tops. The airplane then flew off in the direction of an "enormous black cloud with lightning flashing out of it" and eventually out of his view. Examination of the wreckage and the wreckage path revealed evidence of engine power at impact, and no preimpact mechanical anomalies with the airplane or flight control system were found that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's intentional visual flight into night instrument meteorological conditions and thunderstorms and his improper decision to takeoff without getting updated weather information after a briefer cautioned him during a previous flight that visual flight rules flight was not recommended along his route, which resulted in collision with trees and terrain during a visual approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13FA402
- Event ID
- 20130909X93855
- Case number
- ERA13FA402
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-09-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: baac93321046eb5c7357a6f6421a731cee1927511414e49082855e3ed341e147; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:03:46.968Z.