NTSB CAROL · Event
Event FTW81DA031
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
TED SMITH 601 · N9501Q
Damage
Substantial
Craft type
Airplane
Classification
Accident
Light condition
Dusk
Weather
IMC
Phase of flight
EB
Operator type
Business
Airport
HAMMOND MUNI
Kind of flying
B3
Weather at impact
Sky
OVERCAST
Temp
62° F
Aircraft history
Serial number
000610342112
Total time
1,534 hrs
Pilot
Certificate
Flight instructor (CFI)
Total hours
3,251
Age
24
Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)
AR,ACFT BGN DRIFTING RGT,RATE OF DSCNT INCREASED.
Investigator remarks
WHILE TRANSITIONING FM IFR TO VFR,ENCTRD WND SHE
Cause factors
- 64/C/48 C PILOT IN COMMAND MISJUDGED DISTANCE AND ALTITUDE Cause
- 64/B/28 B PILOT IN COMMAND IMPROPER COMPENSATION FOR WIND CONDITIONS
- 82/L/A L WEATHER LOW CEILING
- 82/L/C L WEATHER FOG
- 82/L/I L WEATHER WIND SHEAR
- 82/L/K L WEATHER TURBULENCE IN FLIGHT,CLEAR AIR
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 1989.
Source file
NTSB_1981_3_1989.txt.
Modern CAROL record 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. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗