MIA98FA182 · Piper PA-24-260
Piper PA-24-260 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Goose Creek Airport (28A) to Shiflet Field (9A9)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98FA182
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- TGHUH
- Operator
- Kenneth M. Bleavins · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goose Creek Airport (28A), Indian Trail, NCTo Shiflet Field (9A9), Marion, NC
- 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 › Flight into adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › In-flight weather advisories, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot received three weather briefings before takeoff; the flight departed VFR with no flight plan. Witnesses reported hearing a low flying airplane with a sputtering engine, followed by the engine revving up and an impact. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed in the area, with 2 1/2 statue miles visiblity in heavy rain, and fog reported at 1355 at a weather observation station, about 102 degrees magnetic and 4.88 nautical miles from the crash site A search for the overdue airplane was conducted; it was located 3 days after the accident. Examination of the airplane, flight controls, and engine revealed no evidence of pre-impact failure or malfunction. No maintenance logbooks for the airplane nor the pilot's pilot logbook were located. No determination could be made if the pilot was current to fly in instrument meteorological conditions. Copies of maintenance records from the last country of registration indicate that the airplane was last inspected on October 21, 1993. The ELT did not operate due to being in the 'off' position, and battery voltage less than required. The airplane had been operated for an estimated 2 hours 53 minutes since the fuel tanks were filled. There was no record of the pilot obtaining any in-flight advisories.
Probable cause
The pilot's attempted flight into adverse weather, resulting in a loss of control in flight. Contributing factors were the pilot's failure to obtain updated weather information, rain, and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98FA182
- Event ID
- 20001211X10377
- Case number
- MIA98FA182
- 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: ad4ebfef7f9804e510240385495b17cf5834658ba9c93f416c5ed9233d6600a3; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:33:25.523Z.