ATL94FA047 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From Statesville Regional Airport (SVH) to McMinn County Airport (MMI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94FA047
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N9637J
- Operator
- Daily, Nancy K. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Statesville Regional Airport (SVH), Statesville, NCTo McMinn County Airport (MMI), Athens, TN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
TWO AIRCRAFT, A CESSNA 172 AND A PIPER PA-28, DEPARTED STATESVILLE, NC ON A VFR FLIGHT TO ATHENS, TN. THE PILOT OF THE CESSNA 172 STATED THAT AFTER NIGHTFALL, HE OBSERVED THAT HIS AIRCRAFT WAS RUNNING LOW ON FUEL, AND DECIDED TO LAND IN MURPHY, NC AND PURCHASE FUEL. HE CONTACTED THE PILOT OF THE PIPER AND ADVISED HER OF HIS INTENTIONS. SHE STATED THAT SHE HAD AMPLE FUEL AND WAS CONTINUING ON TO ATHENS. THE PILOT OF THE CESSNA LANDED IN MURPHY, AND DID NOT HAVE ANY FURTHER CONTACT WITH THE PILOT OF THE PIPER. HE STATED THAT IT WAS A DARK NIGHT, AND THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN WAS DIFFICULT TO SEE IN THE DARK. THE PIPER 180 IMPACTED THE TERRAIN APPROXIMATELY 200 FEET BELOW THE TOP OF A RIDGE LINE. THE PATH THROUGH THE TOPS OF THE TREES INDICATED THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS FLYING STRAIGHT AND LEVEL AT THE TIME OF IMPACT.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain clearance from the terrain. Factors in the accident were the dark night, and the mountainous terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94FA047
- Event ID
- 20001206X00694
- Case number
- ATL94FA047
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-02-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 96be877d0666215714399792c8837a5e5ab0c7f24f723e2554a84be29723b0a3; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:15:13.955Z.