NYC91FA193 · Piper PA-28-236
Piper PA-28-236 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From 1N9 · Allentown, PA to Wheeling Ohio County Airport (HLG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91FA193
- 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-28-236
- 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
- N28568
- Operator
- Albert J. Loquasto · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1N9 · Allentown, PATo Wheeling Ohio County Airport (HLG), Wheeling, WV
- 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 · climb to 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT PLANNED A VFR FLIGHT, BUT THE WEATHER AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT REMAINED IFR LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED. THE WEATHER WAS STILL MARGINAL VFR, WHEN THE PILOT TOOK OFF. THERE WERE REPORTS OF TURBULENCE, THUNDERSTORMS AND POOR VISIBILITY IN THE AREA. WHILE CLIMBING THROUGH 6700 FEET, THE RADAR DATA SHOWED THE AIRPLANE ENTERED A RAPID DESCENT, WITH VERTICAL VELOCITY EXCEEDING 10,000 FEET PER MINUTE. THE AIRPLANE WINGS SEPARATED IN FLIGHT AND A WITNESS SAW IT SPIRAL INTO THE GROUND, FOLLOWED BY THE WINGS 3 TO 4 MINUTES LATER. THE PILOT HAD A TOTAL FLIGHT TIME OF 218 HOURS.
Probable cause
THE IMPROPER DECISION BY THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT TO ATTEMPT VFR FLIGHT IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS, WHICH RESULTED IN A LOSS OF AIRPLANE CONTROL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S OVERCONFIDENCE IN HIS ABILITY, HIS LACK OF TOTAL FLIGHT EXPERIENCE AND HIS LACK OF AN INSTRUMENT RATING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91FA193
- Event ID
- 20001212X17649
- Case number
- NYC91FA193
- 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: 5a6928433873ca76558677de4ea101d425450e8f42a5687724ae541d415413bd; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:39:58.268Z.