FTW91FA012 · Piper 601P
G.T. Contractors Piper 601P · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From 02J · CORDELLE, GA to A L Mangham Jr. Regional Airport (OCH)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW91FA012
- 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
- 5 · 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 601P
- Aircraft type
- Piper 601
- 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
- N23NS
- Operator
- G.T. Contractors
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 02J · CORDELLE, GATo A L Mangham Jr. Regional Airport (OCH)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, not followed
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT ABT 1744 CST, BFR REACHING HIS DESTN, THE PLT RPRTD THAT DURING THE FLT, HE HAD ENCTRD HEAD WINDS & HAD ONLY 50 MIN OF FUEL REMAINING. HE WAS PROVIDED PREFERENTIAL HNDLG, BUT ANOTHER FLT WAS ALSO LOW ON FUEL. THE PLT WAS CLRD FOR AN NDBRWY 15 APCH. AT 1756:49, HE ACKNOWLEDGED CLNC FOR THE APCH. AT APRX 1800, UNICOM ADZD THE CURRENT WX WAS: 700' BKN, SKY OBSCD WITH HVY RAIN, WND VARIABLE FM 090 TO 240 DEG AT 24 GSTG 29 KTS. THE PLT DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE WX, EXCEPT TO SAYIN A CALM VOICE, 'I HOPE YOU HAVE YOUR LGTS ON.' THE FBO HEARD SVRL CLICKS ON THE UNICOM (AS IF TO ACTVT THE RWY LGTS),THEN THERE WAS NO FURTHER RDO CTC WITH THE ACFT. THE ACFT HIT TREES & CRASHED ABT 6 MI WNW OF THE ARPT. WITNESSES RPRTD IT WAS AT LOW ALT & HAD REVERSED COURSE BFR CRASHING ON A SOUTHERLY HDG. THE MAIN WRECKAGE CAME TO REST ABT 380' FM THE INITIAL IMPACT POINT WITH TREES. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FND. ABT 42 MI SSE AT LUFKIN, THE 1751 CST WXWAS IN PART: 200' OVC, VIS 3/4 MI WITH TSTMS, HVY RW & FOG, WND FM 020 DEG AT 12 KTS. APCH MINS: 600' CIG & 1 MI VIS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO FOLLOW IFR PROCEDURES AND MAINTAIN THE PROPER ALTITUDE. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS, DARK NIGHT, LOW FUEL STATE OF THE AIRCRAFT, AND TREES AT THE ACCIDENT SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW91FA012
- Event ID
- 20001212X24611
- Case number
- FTW91FA012
- 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 1990-11-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1827ef7ea7711ec6c10f08f8327e9b945cea11e509a8009eba4c8ab47d70668; retrieved 2026-09-21T02:05:28.365Z.