Jason S. Christie

Cessna 401

The airplane departed on a long cross country flight, with thunderstorms and rain squalls along the general route. Approaching the destination airport, the airplane entered a rain squall, stalled, and impacted the ground in an almost vertical descent. Other than the onboard weather radar being previously removed for maintenance, there were no mechanical anomalies noted with the airplane. The pilot, whose logbook was not recovered, was not instrument qualified. Although he was recently observed flying four to five times weekly, when the pilot applied for a multi-engine rating about 3 1/2 months earlier, he indicated 107 hours of total flight experience.