MIA89FA033 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From St Simons Island Airport (SSI) to Jacksonville International Airport (JAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA89FA033
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N8342L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Simons Island Airport (SSI), Brunswick, GATo Jacksonville International Airport (JAX), Jacksonville, FL
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › Decision height, improper use of
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, not attained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Jacksonville, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DRG A NGT ARRIVAL, THE PLT REQUESTED A SPECIAL VFR CLNC TO THE ARPT & WAS ADZD THAT THE WX WAS PARTIALLY OBSCURED, VIS WAS 1 MI WITH FOG & THE WIND WAS CALM. AS HE CONTD THE APCH, ALL FLTS WERE ADZD THE VIS HAD DROPPED TO 1/2 MI. THE PLT REQUESTED CLNC FOR AN ILS RWY 7 APCH. AFTER BEING CLRD FOR THE APCH, HE WAS ADZD THE RVR WAS '2000 TOUCHDOWN . . . MID- POINT 1000 & ROLLOUT 1600.' CONTACT WITH THE ACFT WAS LOST AS IT APCHD THE ARPT. LATER, THE ACFT WAS FND WHERE IT HAD COLLIDED WITH TREES & CRASHED APRX 1400 FT LEFT OF THE RWY & 500 FT PAST THE THRESHOLD. AN INV REVEALED THAT INITIAL IMPACT WAS IN A LVL ATTITUDE. AN EXAM OF THE ACFT REVEALED THE FLAPS WERE FULLY RETRACTED & THE THROTTLE WAS FULL OPEN. PROP DAMAGE INDCD THERE WAS ROTATION AT HIGH RPM DURING IMPACT. RECORDS SHOWED THE ACFT HAD AN INOP TURN COORDINATOR. NO OTHER PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS EVIDENT. A CHECK OF THE WT & BALANCE INFO SHOWED THAT WHEN THE ACFT CRASHED, IT WAS APRX 55 LBS OVER THE MAX GROSS WT LIMITATION & THE CENTER-OF-GRAVITY (CG) WAS APRX .5 INCH BEHIND THE AFT LIMIT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA89FA033
- Event ID
- 20001213X27291
- Case number
- MIA89FA033
- 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 1988-11-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 555ad301a959889d8059b957f63f126732554372db3d7e7f09abb35bed734a1b; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:10:16.431Z.