ATL88FA010 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU) to Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL88FA010
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-161
- 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
- N84430
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oconee County Regional Airport (CEU), Clemson, SCTo Mid Ohio Valley Regional Airport (PKB), Parkersburg, WV
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › In-flight weather advisories, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLTS TRIP HOME HAD BEEN DELAYED ONE DAY DUE TO WX ENRT. HE HAD CALLED THE FSS EARLY FOR A BRIEFING AND HAD BEEN ADVISED THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO TROUBLE FOR A NOON DEPART TIME. HE DEPTD CLEMSON ABOUT 1000 AND ACTIVATED HIS VFR FLT PLAN. HE THEN CONTACTED GSP APCH CONTROL FOR CLEARANCE THROUGH THE GSP AREA. EIGHT MINUTES PRIOR TO THE MISHAP, THE PLT REQ CLEARANCE TO CLB TO 7,500 FT BECAUSE HE WAS GETTING CLOSE TO A CLOUD BANK. CLEARANCE WAS DENIED DUE TO A CESSNA 185 AT 7,500 AND WHICH WAS GOING NE. THE 185 RADIOED GSP APCH THAT HE WAS GOING BACK TO GRIFFIN BECAUSE 'IT DOESN'T LOOK TOO GOOD UP HERE NOW'. HE WAS BETWEEN LAYERS. THE PIPER WAS CLRD TO 7,500. ABOUT ONE MIN AFTER ACKNOWLEDGING THAT HE WAS AT 7,500, GSP APCH RADIOED TO THE PIPER THAT THEY OBSERVED HIM IN A LT TURN AND DESCENDING. 30 SEC LATER THE ELT ACTIVATED. THE ACFT WAS OBSERVED TO COME OUT OF THE BOTTOM OF THE OVC IN PIECES, FOLLOWING AN INFLIGHT BREAKUP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL88FA010
- Event ID
- 20001213X32243
- Case number
- ATL88FA010
- 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: 7357da1cd0208c157450daea0c0ee33427bea45a11be49836ac83f8f47b5bd79; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:57:09.620Z.