BFO86FA015 · Piper PA-32-260
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From 27A · Elberton, GA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO86FA015
- 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
- 3 · 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-32-260
- 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
- N9477C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 27A · Elberton, 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- 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 › Decision height, exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT HAD DEPARTED ELBERTON, GEORGIA AT ABOUT 2043 HOURS ON AN IFR FLIGHT PLAN TO LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA. AFTER FAILING TO DESCEND OUT OF 4000 FEET DURING THE FIRST APPROACH, N9477C WAS VECTORED AROUND FOR A SECOND ILS APPROACH TO RUNWAY 3. SINCE THE TOWER CONTROLLER HAD GONE OFF DUTY THE SEQUENCE FLASHING LIGHTS FOR THAT RUNWAY WERE ACTIVATED BY THE PILOT. WEATHER RECORDING INSTRUMENTS ON THE FIELD INDICATED THAT THEY HAD BEEN ACTIVATED DURING THE FIRST APPROACH BUT HAD GONE OUT 8 MINUTES BEFORE THE ACCIDENT DURING THE TIME THE AIRCRAFT WAS BEING VECTORED BACK TO THE ILS LOCALIZER. THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED TREES AND THE GROUND JUST SHORT OF AND TO THE LEFT OF THE APPROACH END OF RUNWAY 3.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO86FA015
- Event ID
- 20001213X32819
- Case number
- BFO86FA015
- 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 1986-02-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dc49a005cf4d13f90f8aa755c9c74ebb7da4899c76831ec8e5b6a2d01f3e1fc7; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:40:34.975Z.