ATL89FA222 · Piper PA-28-181
Sun Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB) to Huntsville International Airport (HSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89FA222
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-181
- 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
- N8211P
- Operator
- Sun Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB), Vero Beach, FLTo Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Huntsville, AL
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ON 10/31/88, THE PLT OBTAINED WX INFO & FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN FM VERO BEACH, FL, TO HUNTSVILLE, AL. AT APRX 1513 EST, HECTCD ATC & RPRTD CLIMBING THRU 1500' FOR 3000'. ABOUT 2.4 HRS LATER, HE RPRTD A LOSS OF ENG PWR. VECTORS WERE PROVIDED TOWARD AN ARPT, BUT RADAR CTC WAS LOST ABT 13 MI SOUTH OF ALEXANDER CITY, AL. ON 11/16/90, THE ACFT WAS FND WHERE IT HADSANK IN 65' OF WATER IN MARTIN LAKE. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE ACDNT. THE ENG WAS CHECKED ON A TEST STAND & IT OPERATED WITH THE ORIGINAL ACCESSORIES INSTALLED. PSNL AT THE DEP ARPT INDCD THE ACFT WOULD NORMALLY HAVE BEEN SVCD WITH THE NORMAL RAMP CAPACITY OF 50 GAL OF FUEL. FUEL CONSUMPTION WAS ESTD TO HAVE BEEN ABOUT 10.5 GAL/HR; HOWEVER, REFUELING RECORDS DID NOT VERIFY WHEN THE ACFT WAS LAST REFUELED. ALSO, THE WX COND WAS RPRTD TO HAVE BEEN CONDUCIVE TO CARB ICING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89FA222
- Event ID
- 20001213X26976
- Case number
- ATL89FA222
- 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 1988-11-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a37735a165f435b5f9c353d1770e3a38f11355fa374aa27af7104c600116a6fa; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:30:13.399Z.