Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / CHI79FA002

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CHI79FA002

1979-10-05 ELGIN, Illinois, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

PIPER PA-32R · N61424

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Airplane

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dusk

Weather

IMC

Phase of flight

Takeoff — initial climb (C1)

Operator type

D

Airport

ELGIN

Kind of flying

B2

Weather at impact

Sky

UNKNOWN/NOT REPORTED

Wind

320° / 8 kt

Temp

40° F

Aircraft history

Serial number

00032R-78845

Total time

375 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

338

Age

41

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

PILOT-FAILED TO MAINTAIN POSITIVE RATE OF CLIMB

Cause factors

  • 84/A/J A
    MISCELLANEOUS WRITTEN CAUSE Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/C J
    WEATHER FOG Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 2497. Source file NTSB_1979_3_2497.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.