FTW88LA076 · Piper PA-24-400
Piper PA-24-400 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to Dallas Love Field (DAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW88LA076
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-24-400
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N8496P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TXTo Dallas Love Field (DAL), Dallas, TX
- 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
- 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
- Design stress limits of aircraft › Exceeded
- Weather condition › Turbulence in clouds
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Midland, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT WHILE HE WAS CRUISING AT 13,000 FT ON AN IFR FLT, THE ACFT WAS SKIMMING THE TOPS OF RAGGED CUMULUS BUILD-UPS. HE ESTIMATED THE ACFT WAS APRX 200 TO 300 FT BELOW THE TOP OF ONE SUCH CLOUD WHEN SEVERE TURBULENCE WAS ENCOUNTERED. DURING THE ENCOUNTER, A 1500 TO 2000 FT LOSS OF ALTITUDE OCCURRED & THE ACFT WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED. AFTER THE OCCURRENCE THE PLT NOTED THE 'GEAR UP' LIGHT WAS NOT ILLUMINATED, THE AIRSPEED INDICATOR WAS INOP, & SOME RIVETS WERE POPPED ON THE WINGS. AT THE DESTINATION, HE WAS UNABLE TO EXTEND THE LANDING GEAR WITH EITHER THE NORMAL OR EMERGENCY SYSTEMS. HE THEN DIVERTED TO REDBIRD ARPT & MADE A WHEELS-UP LANDING WHICH RESULTED IN MINIMAL ADDITIONAL DAMAGE. THE PRE-FLT WX BRIEFING CALLED FOR TURBULENCE ALONG THE ROUTE WITH OCCASIONAL LIGHT TO MODERATE ACTIVITY BELOW 8000 FT. THE PLT RPRTD HE EXPERIENCED SMOOTH CONDITIONS PRIOR TO THE ACDNT. AFTER THE ACFT WAS PLACED ON JACKS & THE LANDING GEAR MOTOR RELEASE HANDLE WAS 'JIGGLED,' THE NORMAL & EMERGENCY GEAR EXTENSION SYSTEMS OPERATED NORMALLY.
Probable cause
ENCOUNTER WITH SEVERE TURBULENCE WITHIN TOPS OF CONVECTIVE CLOUDS. LEADING TO THIS WAS THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO PROPERLY EVALUATE THE POTENTIAL DANGER OF THE CONVECTIVE ACTIVITY, WHICH HE CHOSE TO PENETRATE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW88LA076
- Event ID
- 20001213X25258
- Case number
- FTW88LA076
- 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: 867e4e25a2bdba2f11261740e42ee674e72110b190b0f848caf64c43d9427c7d; retrieved 2026-09-23T10:54:02.933Z.