ATL87FA174 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI) to Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87FA174
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N900AJ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key Field / Meridian Regional Airport (MEI), Meridian, MSTo Piedmont Triad International Airport (GSO), Greensboro, NC
- 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
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › Hazardous weather advisory, disregarded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING A PERSONAL NIGHT X-COUNTRY VFR FLIGHT OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN THE PLT WAS INFORMED BY ATC THAT VIP LEVEL 3 AND 4 THUNDERSTORMS WERE POSITIONED ACROSS THE INTENDED FLT PATH. THE 128 HOUR NON-INSTRUMENT RATED PRIVATE PLT ACKNOWLEDGED AND CONTINUED THE FLT. SOON AFTERWARDS RADIO AND RADAR CONTACT WERE LOST. THE ACFT EXPERIENCED AN IN-FLIGHT BREAKUP. ALL STRUCTURAL FAILURES HAD OVERSTRESS SIGNATURES TYPICAL OF OVERLOAD. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF PRE-BREAKUP MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE. A METEOROLOGICAL SUMMARY OF THE ACCD SITE INDICATED THAT THE LEADING EDGE OF A WX ECHO OF AT LEAST MOD INTENSITY CONTAINING AT LEAST A MOD RAIN SHOWER WAS LOCATED IN THE VICINITY OF THE ACCD SITE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87FA174
- Event ID
- 20001213X31080
- Case number
- ATL87FA174
- 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 1987-06-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2709ab06c3b197578d3f0814c26396e39b85138f478792480b34af1463c02e96; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:06:29.652Z.