ATL90FA093 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From 54A · Perry, GA to Clark Regional Airport (JVY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90FA093
- 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
- N55864
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 54A · Perry, GATo Clark Regional Airport (JVY), Jeffersonville, 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of East Ellijay, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED, AND HAD NOT FILED A FLIGHT PLAN FOR THE FLIGHT. THE WEATHER IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS FORECAST TO BE OCCASSIONALLY BELOW THAT REQUIRED FOR FLIGHT UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES. THE FORECAST ALSO CALLED FOR MOUNTAINS TO BE OCCASSIONALLY OBSCURED IN CLOUDS AND RAIN. THE PILOT RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING AND WAS ADVISED THAT FLIGHT UNDER VISUAL FLIGHT RULES WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. THE AIRCRAFT CRASHED INTO TREES IN THE MOUNTAINOUS AREA. THE WRECKAGE WAS SCATTERED OVER APPROXIMATELY 150 FEET.
Probable cause
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT'S CONTINUED VFR FLIGHT INTO INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90FA093
- Event ID
- 20001212X22660
- Case number
- ATL90FA093
- 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: dd1d35f2e8e2ef5c014b24a821572f7127eb0d7bf83c6f6faa88fe42be49ed02; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:51:33.723Z.