NTSB CAROL · Event
Event CEN23LA138
Registry · N789TB
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
SOCATA TB21
Year of manufacture
1999 · 24 years old at event
Engine
LYCOMING TI0-540 SER (310 hp)
Seats / Engines
4 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
20000204
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S AAB3A0
Registrant of record
KELLY DERRELL R
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The pilot’s continued flight into icing conditions in an airplane that was not equipped for icing, which led to structural icing, subsequent loss of airplane control and impact with terrain.
Factual narrative
The pilot reported that, during a night cross country flight, the airplane encountered icing conditions while on an instrument approach. The pilot observed about 4 inches of ice had formed on the wing, running about one foot aft. The pilot reported he put the landing gear down about 5 miles from the runway. The pilot continued the approach and stated he broke out of the clouds about 300-400 ft agl and had “minimal control.” The airplane impacted snow-covered ground and came to rest about a half mile from the runway. The airplane was destroyed by a post-impact fire. In an email, the pilot stated the “airplane was in good shape.” At the time of the accident there was an icing AIRMET that covered the location of the accident. The Socata TB21 Pilot Information Manual states “Flight into known icing conditions is prohibited.” Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Planning/preparation-Weather planning-Pilot
- — Personnel issues-Psychological-Attention/monitoring-Monitoring environment-Pilot
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Aircraft capability-(general)-Capability exceeded
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Ceiling/visibility/precip-Drizzle/mist-Effect on equipment
- — Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2023_CEN23LA138.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (icing). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Contractor Report (CR)
Icing Physics Studies Using the 3D SIDRM Test Article: 2023 Icing Tests Analysis
In-flight icing is an important safety issue and is a factor that affects aircraft design and performance. Newer regulations are driving a need for improvements in airframe and engine icing simulation…
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning for UAV-Assisted 5G Network Slicing: A Comparative Study of MAPPO, MADDPG, and MADQN
The growing demand for robust, scalable wireless networks in the 5G-and-beyond era has led to the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as mobile base stations to enhance coverage in dense urb…
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER)
A Mathematical Model on the Temporal Dynamics of Aviation Competitive Pricing
This study investigates the competitive dynamics of airport pricing using U.S. airport data to validate the findings. It employs linear and nonlinear ordinary differential equation models to analyze t…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Presentation
NASA Icing Update – March 2025
This NASA Icing Update was prepared for presentation to the SAE International AC-9C Inflight Icing Technology Committee. This update includes the following topics: planned Rotational Icing Scaling tes…
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
An energy-stable phase-field model for droplet icing simulations
A phase-field model for three-phase flows is established by combining the Navier-Stokes (NS) and the energy equations, with the Allen-Cahn (AC) and Cahn-Hilliard (CH) equations and is demonstrated ana…
- NASA NTRS 2024 · Presentation
NASA Icing Update – Oct 2024
This presentation provides a status update on select NASA icing research activities for the SAE AC-9C Icing Technical Committee Meeting on Oct 21, 2024.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗