NTSB CAROL · Event
Event FTW90LA087
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
IMPROPER IFR PROCEDURE BY THE PILOT BY NOT MAINTAINING THE MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE (MDA) FOR THAT SEGMENT OF THE APPROACH. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: DARKNESS, LOW CEILING, FOG, AND RAIN.
Factual narrative
THE PILOTS WERE MAKING AN NDB APPROACH TO AN UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT THAT WAS 941 FEET MSL. THE NDB WAS 1.8 NM FROM THE AIRPORT, AND THE PILOTS WERE SUPPOSED TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM DESCENT ALTITUDE (MDA) OF 1,540 FEET UNTIL THE RUNWAY WAS IN SIGHT. PRIOR TO THE CRASH, ATC HAD TOLD THEM THAT THEY WERE 15 MILES FROM THE AIRPORT. APPROXIMATELY FOUR MILES FROM THE AIRPORT, THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE TOP OF A HILL, AT A POINT 990 FEET MSL. THE AIRPLANE WAS DEMOLISHED BY IMPACT AND POST-IMPACT FIRE. THE WEATHER WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 300 FEET OVERCAST AND ONE MILE VISIBILITY. NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS WERE REPORTED OR DISCOVERED. THE LACK OF A LOCAL ALTIMETER SETTING INCREASED THE MDA BY 240 FEET. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1990_FTW90LA087.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. 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 2019 · Technical Memorandum (TM)
A preliminary study of a wake vortex encounter hazard boundary for a B737-100 airplane
A preliminary batch simulation study was conducted to define the wake decay required for a Boeing 737-100 airplane to safely encounter a Boeing 727 wake and land.
- NASA NTRS 2018 · Other
A Numerical Simulation Study to Develop an Acceptable Wake Encounter Boundary for a B737-100 Airplane
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is conducting research with the goal of enabling safe improvements in the capacity of the nation's air transportation system.
- NASA NTRS 2011 · Other
A unified cleaning facility in a Class 100 clean room
Downdraft clean room for cleaning and potting of mechanical and electrical components and various plastics systems
- arXiv 2026 · arXiv preprint
Closed-loop Uplink Radio Resource Management in CF-O-RAN Empowered 5G Aerial Corridor
In this paper, we investigate the uplink (UL) radio resource management for 5G aerial corridors with an open-radio access network (O-RAN)-enabled cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output …
- arXiv 2026 · arXiv preprint
Autonomous Navigation at the Nano-Scale: Algorithms, Architectures, and Constraints
Autonomous navigation for nano-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (nano-UAVs) is governed by extreme Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constraints (with the weight < 50 g and sub-100 mW onboard processor), d…
- arXiv 2026 · arXiv preprint
Precision Meets Art: Autonomous Multi-UAV System for Large Scale Mural Drawing
The integration of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into large-scale artistic projects has emerged as a new application in robotics.
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