ATL86MA087 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: abrupt maneuver while maneuvering
From South Alabama Regional At Bill Benton Field Airport (79J) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL86MA087
- 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-32-300
- 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
- N1099X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From South Alabama Regional At Bill Benton Field Airport (79J), Andalusia, ALTo 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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/spin
- 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
- Faa inspector › Condition(s)/step(s) insufficiently defined
- Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings, cargo restraints › Inadequate
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, intentional
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, intentional
- Pilot in command › Tie down, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT FLT WAS TO BE THE LAST IN A SERIES OF FLT TESTS. THIS FLT WAS FOR THE PURPOSE OF DETERMINING THE LANDING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ACFT WITH A COMBINATION SPEED/STOL KIT INSTALLED. WHEN THE FAA FLT TEST PLT FAILED TO RETURN FROM THE MISSION A SEARCH WAS STARTED. THE ACFT HAD BEEN SEEN SPINNING BY 3 WITNESSES WHO ALSO SAW THE PLT JUMP FROM THE ACFT AT LOW ALT. THE PLT WORE A PARACHUTE BUT IT WAS NOT DEPLOYED AND HE WAS FATALLY INJURED. THE PLTS CLOTHING HAD OIL SPLATTERS WHICH CHEMICALLY TESTED THE SAME AS THE OIL USED FOR BALLAST IN THE ACFT. THERE WERE NO OIL CONTAINERSNEAR THE BODY WHICH WAS ABOUT 20 YDS FROM THE ACFT WRECKAGE. THE BALLAST WAS IMPROPERLY SECURED IN THE ACFT AND HAD NOT BEEN INSPECTED BY FAA. THE FAA INSPECTOR DID NO EVALUATION OR INSTRUCTING ON THE CONDUCT OF THESE TESTS. THE OWNER SAID HE HAD PERFORMED THE SAME TESTS AS ATTEMPTED BUT THERE WERE NO RECORDS CONCERNING THESE TESTS. THE EXIT DOOR JETTISON FUNCTION REQUIRED 3 PROCEDURAL STEPS FOR EGRESS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL86MA087
- Event ID
- 20001213X32991
- Case number
- ATL86MA087
- 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: 84cf4e209465e45ed7ffe9586eb97b8edca3e48e38043e7d776b0eee8b5e8d11; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:39:01.083Z.