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Atlas / NTSB / MKC85FA180

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event MKC85FA180

1985-08-10 VERSAILLES, Missouri, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N17351

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

RYAN AERONAUTICAL ST-A

Year of manufacture

1937 · 48 years old at event

Engine

MENASCO PIRATE C4 D4 (125 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19640930

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A12773

Registrant of record

SOMERS CHARLES MICHAEL

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

THE PLT OF ANOTHER (ACCOMPANYING) ACFT, HAD BRIEFED THE PLT OF N17351, ON WX THAT COULD BE EXPECTED EN ROUTE. INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING THE OTHER ACFT AS HE HAD BEEN BRIEFED, THE PLT OF N17351 GOT IN THE LEAD. WHILE EN ROUTE, HE WAS OBSERVED TO FLY UNDER THE EDGE OF CLOUDS FROM WHICH HE DID NOT RETURN. A GROUND WITNESS SAW HIM COME OUT OF A LOW CEILING IN APRX A 45 DEG NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE & IMPACT IN AN OPEN FIELD. NEITHER THE ACFT NOR THE PLT WERE CERTIFIED FOR FLT IN INSTRUMENT CONDITIONS. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1985_MKC85FA180.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

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 ↗