CEN16FA054 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA054
- 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 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N90123
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 69 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument-rated pilot and one passenger departed at an unknown time from an unknown location into dark night conditions that were forecast to be marginal visual flight rules to instrument flight rules conditions. A witness observed the airplane circling overhead, and stated that the appearance of the airplane's exterior lights suggested that it was flying in clouds or fog. During the airplane's third orbit, the exterior lights became brighter as it descended out of the clouds, then abruptly descended to ground contact. An examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane.
The pilot's logbooks were not recovered, and his total flight experience could not be determined. The pilot had a history of substance abuse and dependence involving methamphetamine, including multiple arrests and convictions related to drug use. However, he was reportedly in recovery at the time of his last medical examination in 2012. Toxicological testing on the pilot was positive for methamphetamine and its metabolite, amphetamine, at levels which suggested recreational use. Symptoms of recreational methamphetamine use follow a typical pattern. In the early phase, users experience euphoria, excitation, exhilaration, hallucinations, delusions, psychosis, increased alertness, a heightened sense of well-being, and poor impulse control. All of the symptoms caused by high doses of methamphetamine are impairing, but the fact that the noninstrument-rated pilot chose to take off without a weather briefing at night and flew into low clouds before losing control indicates the pilot was deliberately attempting a flight beyond his capabilities. Consistent with his very highly elevated blood levels, this suggests his poor decision-making was influenced by the euphoria and grandiosity conferred by the early phase effects of methamphetamine. Witness observations of the airplane circling in clouds or fog then descending to ground contact suggest that the impaired pilot most likely experienced spatial disorientation and a subsequent loss of airplane control.
Probable cause
The non-instrument-rated pilot's decision to operate in dark night conditions with low clouds, which resulted in a loss of control due to spatial disorientation. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's use of methamphetamine, which impaired his decision-making abilities.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA054
- Event ID
- 20151207X11116
- Case number
- CEN16FA054
- 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 2015-12-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8b975bd85c68b388b955023668bbabfcaeebfd941d1069d04baffcc64323ac1f; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:35:03.916Z.