ATL95FA078 · Piper PA-34-200T
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: airframe, component or system failure while maneuvering
From LHC · Arlington, TN to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95FA078
- 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
- 2 · 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-34-200T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N6390C
- Operator
- Perkins, Bradley H. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LHC · Arlington, TNTo not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE COMMERCIAL PILOT WAS MAKING WHAT WAS REPORTED TO BE HIS LAST FLIGHT IN THE AIRPLANE, BECAUSE HE WAS TAKING A JOB AS A COMMUTER PILOT. A CFI, WHO TALKED WITH THE PILOT BEFORE DEPARTURE, REPORTED THAT THE PILOT SAID HE WAS GOING TO 'ROLL THE AIRPLANE.' WITNESSES REPORTED THAT THE RIGHT WING FOLDED BACK, WITH A LOUD BOOMING NOISE. NO INFLIGHT SMOKE OR FIRE WAS REPORTED. AN EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE LEFT STABILATOR FAILED IN POSITIVE OVERLOAD (FAILED DOWN). THE RIGHT WING FAILED AT THE WING ROOT, AND ALSO OUTBOARD OF THE RIGHT ENGINE. THE LEFT WING FAILED OUTBOARD OF THE LEFT ENGINE. WING SPAR EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THERE WAS UPWARD (POSITIVE) BENDING, BUT FAILURE WAS IN THE DOWNWARD DIRECTION. ALL FRACTURE SURFACES SHOWED EVIDENCE OF OVERLOAD; THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF FATIGUE OBSERVED. THE PILOT'S OPERATING HANDBOOK INCLUDES THE LIMITATION THAT ALL INTENTIONAL AEROBATIC MANEUVERS ARE PROHIBITED IN THIS AIRPLANE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT EXCEEDED THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT AND SUBSEQUENT OVERLOAD FAILURES OF THE STABILATOR AND WING SPARS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95FA078
- Event ID
- 20001207X03213
- Case number
- ATL95FA078
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c796468dd7219569bb89ded04912e72b29436717b26ba1da1d2194af367abbdd; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:49:55.257Z.