BFO95FA064 · Piper PA-31P-350
Piper PA-31P-350 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Nashville International Airport (BNA) to Lancaster Airport (LNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO95FA064
- 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
- 3 · 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-31P-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N922DC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TNTo Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PA
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ATC data indicated the airplane was in cruise flight at about 17,000 feet MSL, when the pilot deviated from the intended flight path to avoid thunderstorms. At 2150 EDT, the pilot requested clearance to climb to 19,000 MSL. At 2152, he requested a right turn out of weather and advised ATC that he was 'getting icing.' Between 2153 and 2154, the pilot's transmissions were garbled, then at 2154:38, he stated '...trying to get out of this mess.' Radar and radio contact with the airplane were lost. An in-flight breakup of the airplane occurred, and wreckage was found scattered over a 3 mile area. Postaccident examination revealed the outboard portion of the right wing had failed and separated in an upward and aft direction. Scrape marks were found on the right side of the fuselage, and there was damage to the right horizontal stabilizer and rudder. Also, there was evidence that both engines had separated in flight; they were found about 1 mile from the main wreckage. No preexisting mechanical malfunction or fatigue of the airplane was found. The pilot had received a complete weather briefing, and was advised of severe weather along the intended route of flight.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision, and his allowing the airplane to exceed its maximum design/stress limitation. Factors relating to the accident were: the adverse weather conditions, and the pilot's continued flight into adverse weather.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO95FA064
- Event ID
- 20001207X03625
- Case number
- BFO95FA064
- 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 1995-06-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 81a801d9c3461d4b1d62914c6c53b75d40eda64ce882c38d7d847f8640201c13; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:44:25.730Z.