WINSLOW, Ark. (WJTV) – The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its final report on the investigation into a small plane crash that killed a former Mississippi state senator in Arkansas.
The crash killed Johnny Morgan, 76, of Oxford, Mississippi, who served in the Mississippi Senate from 1984 to 1992. He was the only person aboard the twin-engine Beech King Air E-90 plane when it crashed May 17, 2023, in a wooded area in northwestern Arkansas, south of Fayetteville.
The crash happened just over an hour after the plane took off from University-Oxford Airport in Oxford.
The NTSB said Morgan had contacted an avionics repair facility at Drake Field Airport in Fayetteville to discuss the plane’s autopilot problems. A technician told Morgan to bring the plane in for service and to not use autopilot during the flight. Morgan planned to fly to Fayetteville and leave the plane at the avionics facility for maintenance, according to the NTSB.
During the descent, the NTSB reported the plane was descending more than 15,000 per minute shortly before impact. They determined Morgan was likely not using the autopilot and was hand flying the plane. The report said Morgan was likely accustomed to flying the plane with the automation.
Based on the recorded flight path, investigators said it’s likely that Morgan became spatially disoriented and lost control of the plane.
In addition, the pilot allowed his self-imposed pressure to influence his decision to complete the flight in less-than-ideal weather conditions without a functional autopilot.
Although ethanol was detected in liver and muscle tissue, it is likely that some, or all, of the detected ethanol was from postmortem production. Thus, it is unlikely that ethanol contributed to the accident. Tadalafil, salicylic acid, famotidine, atenolol, and irbesartan were detected in liver and muscle tissue, but it is unlikely that these substances contributed to the accident.
NTSB
The NTSB determined the probable cause of the accident o be the pilot’s poor preflight decision to department into “known instrument meteorological conditions” without a functional autopilot system. They said the pilot’s self-imposed pressure to conduct the flight also contributed to the accident.