ATL87LA073 · Piper PA-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30
Transportation America Piper PA-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lebanon Municipal Airport (M54) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87LA073
- 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-32RT-300 PA-32RT-30
- 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
- N31590
- Operator
- Transportation America
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lebanon Municipal Airport (M54), Lebanon, TNTo not recorded
- 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
- Stall/mush
- 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
- Stabilizer › Ice
- Stall/mush
- Wing › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT HE CONDUCTED AN ILS APPCH BEHIND MIXED JET AND TURBOPROP TRAFFIC; THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED AN 'EXTREME DOWNDRAFT' WHILE ON APPCH AND THE ACFT VERTICAL SPEED WENT FROM ABOUT 500 FPM TO ABOUT 1200 FPM. HE ATTEMPTED TO RECOVER BY ADDING FULL POWER, INCREASING PITCH, AND REDUCING THE FLAP SETTING FROM 25 DEGREES TO 10, BUT WAS UNABLE TO SUFFICIENTLY ARREST THE SINK RATE. THE ACFT SUBSEQUENTLY STRUCK TWO APPCH LIGHTS AND A LOCALIZER PLATFORM ABOUT 1/4 MILE FROM THE RWY. A BEECH 99 LANDING ABOUT 2 MINUTES AHEAD OF THE ACFT REPORTED NO PROBLEM ON THE APPCH. THE FREEZING LEVEL AT NASHVILLE WAS REPORTED TO 900 FT MSL AT 1750 CST. THE PLT REPORTED THAT ABOUT 20 MINUTES OF THE 30 MINUTE FLT HAD BEEN IN THE CLOUDS. AN AIR CARRIER FLT THAT LANDED ABOUT 10 MINUTES AHEAD REPORTED EXPERIENCING 'LOTS OF RIME ICE'. THE PA-32RT-300 POH STATES THAT THE FLAPS SHOULD BE SLOWLY RETRACTED ONLY WHEN A POSITIVE CLIMB RATE IS ESTABLISHED WHEN INITIATING A GO-AROUND FROM A LDG APPCH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87LA073
- Event ID
- 20001213X30184
- Case number
- ATL87LA073
- 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 1987-02-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6514ee47d56fca97395fde23d90f287b6970f809281a061e636f7e3f862dbbd0; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:31:12.244Z.