WPR14FA172 · NBB Inc GLASAIR III UNDESIGNAT
NBB Inc GLASAIR III UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Lea County Regional Airport (KHOB) to Falcon Field (KFFZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14FA172
- 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
- Unknown
NBB Inc GLASAIR III UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- NBB GLASAIR
- 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
- N911EX
- Operator
- Haskins Steve
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lea County Regional Airport (KHOB), Hobbs, NMTo Falcon Field (KFFZ), Mesa, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 15 years (built 1999)
- 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
- 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
- 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 noninstrument-rated private pilot was conducting a personal cross-country flight; no records were found indicating that the pilot obtained an official weather briefing before departing on the flight. During the flight, the pilot contacted an air route traffic control center (ARTCC) and stated that he was trapped underneath a cloud layer in mountainous terrain and that the visibility was deteriorating. He then declared an emergency. In response to the ARTCC controller, the pilot provided the airplane's GPS position coordinates. Subsequently, the controller was unable to make further direct contact with the pilot due to the mountainous terrain and initiated a relayed conversation using pilots of nearby high-flying aircraft in an attempt to direct the pilot to the nearest airport reporting visual meteorological conditions (VMC).
During the ensuing conversation, the ARTCC controller identified one airport with VMC, but the pilot stated he could not get there without help, presumably due to intervening instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). The closest airport to the accident airplane reported wind 240 degrees at 18 knots gusting to 24 knots, visibility 3/4 mile in snow, and ceilings at 100 ft. An airplane attempting an instrument approach to that airport executed a missed approach and left the area, and this was communicated to the accident pilot. While the controller was checking for other reachable airports, all contact with the pilot was lost.
The airplane was found in mountainous terrain directly below the pilot's first position report, and examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane impacted terrain in a steep descent. The engine and propeller examinations revealed signs consistent with the engine producing power at the time of impact. Because the wreckage was found near the pilot's first position report, it is likely that the pilot loitered in a small geographic area underneath the clouds before entering IMC. He subsequently lost visual reference and was unable to maintain airplane control.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot’s decision to enter instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in the loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14FA172
- Event ID
- 20140426X23435
- Case number
- WPR14FA172
- 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: 716f87a23ca1efffa7d9bae9b81ff134eb2d5e2e8ed21588b2ca01e7360dc644; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:13:46.658Z.