MIA93FA058 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From Tupelo Regional Airport (TUP) to Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA93FA058
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N8205N
- Operator
- Thomas, Aaron S. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tupelo Regional Airport (TUP), Tupelo, MSTo Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY), Atlanta, GA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE INDIVIDUAL WHO FUEL THE AIRPLANE AT APRX 1900 PRIOR TO DEPARTURE, IMC CONDITIONS PREVAILED. THE FLIGHT DEPARTED ABOUT 1930. THE NWS 1951 RECORDED WX AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT WAS 600 FT BROKEN, 1,500 FT OVERCAST, VISIBILITY 6 MI IN FOG. AREA FORECAST FOR MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA AFTER 2000 WAS CEILING AT OR BELOW 1,000 FT AGL WITH VISIBILITY OF 3 MI WITH LIGHT DRIZZLE AND FOG. THE WRECKAGE WAS LOCATED 1/31/93 NEARLY SUBMERGED IN A LAKE.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S INTENTIONAL FLIGHT INTO ADVERSE WEATHER WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF CONTROL. IN ADDITION, THE PILOT WAS OVERCONFIDENT IN HIS ABILITY. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND THE DARK NIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA93FA058
- Event ID
- 20001211X16205
- Case number
- MIA93FA058
- 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 1993-01-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 836128a9eb8f017f3533d94cbdefccdc35dc8f1fc715da419e3df0304745c74b; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:44:16.471Z.