NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ATL95FA173
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
the non-instrument rated pilot's intentional VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions and his failure to maintain control of the aircraft. The weather was a factor.
Factual narrative
HISTORY OF FLIGHT
On September 24, 1995, about 0940 central daylight time, a Cessna 310P, N5926M, collided with the ground during an uncontrolled descent near Lexington, Mississippi. The airplane was operated by the pilot under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 91, and visual flight rules. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed. A flight plan was not filed for the personal flight. The private, non-instrument rated pilot and one passenger were fatally injured, and the airplane was destroyed. Origination of the flight was the C.A. Moore Airport, Lexington, Mississippi, about 30 minutes prior to the accident. Witnesses in the area reported seeing the aircraft descend out of the base of the clouds heading in an easterly direction. They reported that the aircraft was at about 200 feet above ground level, in a right bank, and descending, at the time they observed the aircraft. The aircraft continued the right turn, and descent into the terrain. After the aircraft impacted the terrain, there was an intense post crash fire.
PERSONNEL INFORMATION
The pilot held a private pilot certificate with airplane single and multiengine ratings. His third class medical, issued on January 10, 1989, had expired. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records showed that he had accumulated 3,600 hours of flight time. No pilot records for the pilot were found. The pilot's son reported that his father was not competent to fly the aircraft, and relied on the aircraft autopilot to fly the aircraft. He stated that his father had open heart surgery in 1978, and again in 1990, and that he could not obtain an FAA medical certificate. He said that his father had reported to him that he had vertigo during the flight into Lexington a couple of weeks prior, and that he was going to take the aircraft back to Dallas, and sell it.
AIRCRAFT INFORMATION
The Cessna 310P is a twin engine, low wing, retractable gear airplane. No records for the aircraft could be located following the accident.
METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATION
Instrument meteorological conditions existed at Greensboro, Mississippi at the time of the accident, and witnesses near the accident site reported that the ceilings in the area were about 200 feet above ground level. Additional meteorological information may be obtained on page 4 of this report.
WRECKAGE AND IMPACT INFORMATION
The aircraft impacted the terrain in a field near Lexington, Mississippi. There was an intense post crash fire, and most of the aircraft was consumed in the fire. The aircraft engines were involved in the post crash fire. All of the engine accessories were consumed in the fire. There was no evidence of pre-impact failure of the engines. The aircraft propellers showed signs of "S" bending and twisting towards low pitch.
MEDICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL INFORMATION
An autopsy of the pilot was performed by Dr. Steven T. Hayne of Brandon, Mississippi. Dr. Hayne reported that the pilot died as a result of blunt force trauma received in the accident. A Toxicological examination of the pilot was conducted by the Department of Defense Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC. The report was negative for the use of ethanol. The report stated that 0.15 milligrams per kilogram of ephedrine was found in the kidney.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The aircraft wreckage was released to Sergeant Willie Rule, of the Holmes County, Mississippi Sheriffs Office on September 26, 1995. Witnesses stated that they observed the aircraft as it came out of the base of the clouds. The aircraft was in a right bank, nose down attitude as it descended out of the clouds, and maintained that attitude until impact with the terrain. They also stated that the weather in the area at the time was about 200 feet overcast. The pilot's son reported that his father was not proficient in the aircraft, and relied on the autopilot to fly the aircraft. He also said that his father had open heart surgery in 1978, and again in 1990, and could not obtain an FAA Medical Certificate. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1995_ATL95FA173.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (autopilot). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
ROSflight 2.0: Lean ROS 2-Based Autopilot for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
ROSflight is a lean, open-source autopilot ecosystem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Designed by researchers for researchers, it is built to lower the barrier to entry to UAV research and acceler…
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ROSplane 2.0: A Fixed-Wing Autopilot for Research
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) research requires the integration of cutting-edge technology into existing autopilot frameworks.
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
A Data-Driven Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft Based on Model Predictive Control
Autopilots for fixed-wing aircraft are typically designed based on linearized aerodynamic models consisting of stability and control derivatives obtained from wind-tunnel testing.
- arXiv 2022 · arXiv preprint
Experimental Flight Testing of a Fault-Tolerant Adaptive Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft
This paper presents an adaptive autopilot for fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2021 · arXiv preprint
An Adaptive Digital Autopilot for Fixed-Wing Aircraft with Actuator Faults
This paper develops an adaptive digital autopilot for a fixed-wing aircraft and compares its performance with a fixed-gain autopilot.
- arXiv 2020 · arXiv preprint
Reinforcement Learning for Robust Missile Autopilot Design
Designing missiles' autopilot controllers has been a complex task, given the extensive flight envelope and the nonlinear flight dynamics.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗