NYC99FA193 · Piper PA28R-180
Piper PA28R-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From 7SP to Bowman Field (LOU)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99FA193
- 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 PA28R-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N3892T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 7SPTo Bowman Field (LOU), Louisville, KY
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Climb, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Shortly after takeoff in instrument meteorological conditions, the airplane impacted trees, which were located about 1/2 mile from the airport and below the runway elevation. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any pre-impact malfunctions of the airframe or engine. The pilot obtained his instrument rating about 1 year prior to the accident, and had 'very little, if any' actual flight experience in IMC. The elevation at the departure airport was 2,907 feet. A weather observation recorded at an airport which had a field elevation of 2,284 and was located about 30 miles northeast of the accident site included, visibility 1/2 statue miles with light rain and mist; Ceiling 700 broken, 1,200 broken, 1,700 overcast; Temperature 68 degrees F; Dewpoint 66 degrees F. Additionally, a witness in the area of the departure airport reported that the weather conditions were foggy with intermittent rain.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to obtain a rate of climb after takeoff due to spatial disorientation. Factors in this accident were low ceilings, fog, and the pilot's lack experience in instrument meteorological conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99FA193
- Event ID
- 20001212X19612
- Case number
- NYC99FA193
- 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: 5c36048b9f95a7128de15becd43f5f2e860c231e42be4032d78cee169d34f63d; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:54:28.782Z.