The National Transportation Safety Board released its findings over two years after former Mississippi state senator and businessman Johnny Morgan died in a plane crash.
The final report, which was released July 8, found that Morgan was flying from his hometown of Oxford to Drake Field in Arkansas on May 17, 2023, for scheduled maintenance on his personal Beech E-90 plane’s autopilot system. Before the flight, Morgan was advised by an avionics technician not to fly due to inclement weather but refused to heed the advice, according to the NTSB.
“The avionics technician further advised the pilot to wait for good weather to make the flight, but the pilot reportedly had a function back home that he wanted to attend later, on the day of the accident,” the report stated.
Due to preexisting problems with the plane’s autopilot system, Morgan was hand-flying the aircraft when encountering overcast clouds. He was in contact with Fort Smith Air Traffic Control and cleared for an instrument approach in hopes of a safe landing.
The plane then began rapidly descending at 15,000 feet per minute before crashing in a near-vertical position in northwest Arkansas, leaving Morgan dead.
“The pilot likely was accustomed to flying the airplane with the automation that the autopilot provided rather than by hand in single-pilot instrument meteorological conditions,” the report continued. “Based on the recorded flight path, it is likely the that the pilot became spatially disoriented and lost control of the airplane while intercepting the final approach course for the instrument approach.”
The report added that no mechanical issues were found that would have caused the fatal crash. Morgan was the only person aboard.
Morgan, 76, was a state senator from 1983 until 1991 before serving as a Lafayette County supervisor from 2003 until 2011. He was the co-founder of Morgan White Group, a holding group that offers insurance and administrative products, as well as the charge on other business ventures such as Johnny Morgan & Associates Realty Firm.
At the time of Morgan’s passing, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called him arguably “the most fiercely loyal person” he had ever met. A well-known politico, Morgan stayed involved in between and after his stints in office, often holding fundraisers and events for Republican campaigns.
