BFO89FA081 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water en route
From 2G6 · Meadville, PA to Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89FA081
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Unknown
Piper PA-28-180
- 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
- N44510
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2G6 · Meadville, PATo Orlando Executive Airport (ORL), Orlando, 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 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 collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT DEPARTED FOR THE X-COUNTRY AND FAILED TO ARRIVE AT ITS DESTINATION. IT WAS REPORTED MISSING ON 4-19-89. SEARCH EFFORTS FAILED TO LOCATE THE ACFT. THE ACFT WAS LOCATED ON 11-14-89 BY A LOCAL HUNTER. THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TERRAIN AT THE 3,000 FT LEVEL NEAR THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN. WEATHER ALONG THE ROUTE OF FLT AND NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE WAS FORECAST TO HAVE BEEN MARGINAL VFR TO IFR. THE CLOSEST REPORTING STATION REPORTED CEILINGS NEAR THE ELEVATION OF THE ACCIDENT SITE. NO MECHANICAL FAILURE/MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT OR ENGINE WAS NOTED DURING THE INVESTIGATION. ALTHOUGH THE FUEL TANKS WERE RUPTURED, THE ACFT HAD BEEN REFUELED PRIOR TO ITS DEPARTURE AND SHOULD HAVE HAD SUFFICIENT FUEL TO CONTINUE PAST THE ACCIDENT LOCATION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CLEARANCE ABOVE THE TERRAIN AFTER FLYING VFR INTO IMC. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE LOW CEILING AND FOG CONDITIONS AND THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89FA081
- Event ID
- 20001213X28045
- Case number
- BFO89FA081
- 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: 1289c8fdbbdd971a42eb672be1348d52548b3e652b143ca1a1f9d91e504eb648; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:21:13.437Z.