MIA94FA078 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94FA078
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-161
- 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
- N44899
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV), Savannah, GATo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, FL
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Lack of recent experience in type operation
- Pilot in command › Lack of recent instrument time
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NONINSTRUMENT-RATED PRIVATE PILOT WAS ON A NIGHT CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT AT 8,500 FEET AGL FLIGHT FOLLOWING WITH JACKSONVILLE CENTER. THE PILOT REQUESTED TO DESCEND TO 4,500 FEET. THE REQUEST WAS APPROVED, AND THE PILOT WAS INSTRUCTED TO MAINTAIN VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. THE PILOT DESCENDED THROUGH HIS ASSIGNED ALTITUDE. ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH RADIO CONTACT WITH THE PILOT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL. A WITNESS OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE DESCEND THROUGH THE CLOUDS, AND MAKE A HARD RIGHT TURN ESTIMATED AT ABOUT 45 DEGREEES WITH THE ENGINE RUNNING BEFORE THE AIRPLANE DISAPPEARED FROM VIEW. AN INCREASE IN ENGINE RPM WAS HEARD FOLLOWED BY AN IMPACT, AND SUBSEQUENT TOTAL SILENCE.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's lack of total experience in instrument flight, simulated instrument flight, and night flight resulting in the pilot becoming spatially disoriented, and subsequent in-flight collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the dark night with no visible horizon.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94FA078
- Event ID
- 20001206X00795
- Case number
- MIA94FA078
- 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 1994-02-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6db41ce1212a426d94e550dcb2f1896fde218e4c8ef7f81c31fbe94cfab35c21; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:14:29.020Z.