ATL87FA189 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Jesup Wayne County Airport (JES) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87FA189
- 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
- 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-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
- N15978
- Operator
- R. W. MC Duffie · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jesup Wayne County Airport (JES), Jesup, GATo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Buzzing, intentional
- Pilot in command › Clearance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WITNESSES RPRTD THE ACFT 'BUZZED' (FLEW LOW) OVER A FACTORY, WHERE THE PLT USED TO WORK, THEN IT WENT OVER THE ALTAMAHA RIVER, FLEW UNDER A BRIDGE & CONTINUED UP THE RIVER AT LOW ALT. ABOUT 2 TO 3 MI UPSTREAM, THE ACFT WAS MANEUVERING WHEN IT STRUCK TREES & CRASHED IN THE RIVER. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FND. TOXICOLOGY TESTS SHOWED THAT THE PLT & 2 OF THE PAX'S HAD ALCOHOL IN THEIR BLOOD. A CHECK OF THE 3RD PAX'S BLOOD WAS INCONCLUSIVE. THE PLT'S BLOOD TESTED 0.13% (0.13 GM%) FOR ALCOHOL. HIS MED CERT WAS DATED 8/29/83. HIS LOG BOOK WAS NOT FND, BUT OTHER RECORDS INDCD HE HAD APRX 400 HRS TOTAL TIME WITH 250 HRS IN PA-28 ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87FA189
- Event ID
- 20001213X31082
- Case number
- ATL87FA189
- 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: cec7eb2f61ad2845690b70697c9ee45a24d3a3c418f13aeb901f1a0827310c24; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:05:51.257Z.