BFO89FA012 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Elkin Municipal Airport (ZEF) to Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89FA012
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4194W
- Operator
- Jerry M. Jones · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elkin Municipal Airport (ZEF), Elkin, NCTo Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS), Tulsa, OK
- 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
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, inadvertent
- Wing › Overload
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PLT TOLD WITNESSES THAT HE WOULD ATTEMPT TO CROSS MOUNTAINS NORTH OF THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT WHERE HE EXPECTED TO FIND CLEAR WEATHER BEFORE HE PROCEEDED WEST TOWARD HIS DESTINATION. A WITNESS SAID THE WEATHER AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT WAS ABOUT 1200 OVERCAST WITH GOOD VISIBILITY BELOW THE OVERCAST. THE PLT HAD FLOWN ABOUT 35 MILES AND WAS OVER THE BLUE RIDGE MTS, WHEN ACCORDING TO RECORDED RADAR DATA, THE ACFT BEGAN TO CHANGE COURSE ABOUT 14 TIMES, INCLUDING SEVERAL COURSE REVERSALS, DURING ABO UT A 15 MINUTE PERIOD. DURING THIS TIME THE ACFT CLIMBED FROM 2100 TO 7200 FT. A WITNESS NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE SAID IT WAS RAINING, VISIBILITY 1000 FT, AND THE MOUNTAIN TOPS WERE OBSCURED BY CLOUDS WHEN HE HEARD THE ACFT AT FULL POWER AND CLIMBING SHORTLY BEFORE HE HEARD A 'MUFFLED' SOUND FOLLOWED BY SILENCE. THE ACFT EXPERIENCED AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP CONSISTING OF SEPARATED PORTIONS OF THE RIGHT WING AND RIGHT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE DID NOT REVEAL EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT CONDUCTED VFR FLIGHT INTO IMC BECAUSE OF INADEQUATE INFLIGHT PLANNING/DECISION. THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED INFLIGHT BRAKUP WHEN THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN FLIGHT WITHIN THE DESIGN STRESS LIMITS OF THE AIRCRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89FA012
- Event ID
- 20001213X27211
- Case number
- BFO89FA012
- 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: 733c8a00504d182e56f196a6c6ee88f1a235cb0b99867bcc16721381e4bf7457; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:28:45.034Z.