CHI91LA070 · Piper PA-32-260
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM) to Terre Haute Regional Airport, Hulman Field (HUF)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA070
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Unknown
Piper PA-32-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N3212W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Memphis Municipal Airport (AWM), WEST MEMPHIS, ARTo Terre Haute Regional Airport, Hulman Field (HUF), Terre Haute, IN
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Induction air control/system › Ice
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PLTS OF 2 ACFT PLANNED A FORMATION FLT TO TAKE THE WINGMAN'S AG ACFT FOR SVC. IN A WX BRIEFING, VFR FLT WAS NOT RCMDD & THE PLTS WERE ADZD OF MODERATE RIME & MIXED ICING CONDS IN CLDS BLO 7000'. THE WINGMAN EXPRESSED A SENSE OF URGENCY TO DELIVER HIS ACFT & THE FORMATION FLT DEPD W/O A FLT PLAN. EN ROUTE, THE FLT LEADER (IN PIPER PA-32, N3212W) OBTAINED WX INFO, THEN ELECTED TO DIVERT TO MATTOON ARPT. HE SAID HE ELECTED TO DSCND THRU A 'SCATTERED' CLD LAYER & APPLIED CARB HEAT; HOWEVER, DURING DSCNT, THE ENG LOST PWR. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES & CRASHED. THE WIGMAN RPRTD THAT HE WAS ABT 2000' TO THE RGT AS THEY PENETRATED THE CLD LAYER & HE LOST SIGHT OF THE LEAD ACFT. ALSO, HE RPRTD HE ENCTRD SEVERE ICING CONDS & WAS 'VERY CLOSE TO THE GROUND' WHEN HE DSCNDD BLO THE CLDS. THE WINGMAN'S ACFT HAD NO RDO; AFTER DSCNDG BLO CLDS, HE COULD NOT FIND THE LEAD ACFT. HE WAS UNSURE OF HIS LOCATION, BUT LNDD SAFELY AFTER FLYING BY A WATER TWR AT MARSHALL. ABT 15 MI EAST AT TERRA HAUTE, IN, THE WX WAS IN PART: 1100' OVC, 5 MI VIS WITH HAZE & FOG.
Probable cause
FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER BY THE PILOT(S) AND SUBSEQUENT ICING OF THE PIPER PA-32'S AIR INDUCTION SYSTEM. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS AND A PERCEIVED SENSE OF URGENCY TO MAKE THE FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA070
- Event ID
- 20001212X16288
- Case number
- CHI91LA070
- 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: a7a883a6f7553ef2938069cf169a533c2ba03667f2d00def978d6bfb9e7756df; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:32:22.310Z.