MIA93FA038 · Piper PA-28R-201
Downtown Aviation Piper PA-28R-201 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (GAD) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93FA038
- 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-28R-201
- 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
- N3620M
- Operator
- Downtown Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (GAD), Gadsden, ALTo 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
- Approach · IFR missed approach
- 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 › Proper climb rate, not attained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Jacksonville, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT WHO HAD RECENTLY RECEIVED AN INSTRUMENT AIRPLANE RATING ATTEMPTED TO EXECUTE A NIGHT INSTRUMENT APPROACH IN WEATHER CONDITIONS NEAR THE MINIMUM AUTHORIZED. HE CONTACTED FSS AND ANNOUNCED HIS INTENTIONS TO EXECUTE A MISSED APPROACH THAT CONSISTED OF A CLIMBING RIGHT TURN. NO FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS WERE HEARD. THE AIRPLANE WAS FOUND ABOUT 6 HOURS LATER INVERTED IN A SWAMPY TREE AREA ABOUT 12 MILES TO THE RIGHT OF THE THRESHOLD ON THE RUNWAY TO WHICH THE APPROACH HAD BEEN ATTEMPTED. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE, ENGINE, VACUUM SYSTEM, AND GYROS REVEALED NO PREEXISTING FAILURES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO ATTAIN AN ADEQUATE CLIMB RATE DURING THE MISSED APPROACH IN IMC CONDITIONS. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE PILOT'S SPATIAL DISORIENTATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93FA038
- Event ID
- 20001211X16204
- Case number
- MIA93FA038
- 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 1992-12-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2ba98ef57c6e0e7f009c28f2a3e3944e30552dc87fb73b7142acbe961e229c00; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:45:21.799Z.