BFO86FA021 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO86FA021
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N9636W
- Operator
- Louisiana Delta
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC); 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 › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, initiated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE THE FLT, THE PLT WAS OBSERVED DRINKING IN A BAR. HE & 3 OTHERS THEN DROVE TO THE ARPT, WHERE RPRTDLY, THE WX WAS BAD & THE VISIBILITY WAS RESTRICTED BY FOG. AFTER AWHILE, THE PLT STATED HE WAS GOING TO TAXI THE ACFT AROUND THE ARPT & INVITED THE OTHERS TO JOIN HIM. TWO OF THE OTHERS GOT INTO THE ACFT, BUT THE 4TH PERSON WAS CONCERNED ABOUT THE CONDITIONS & REFUSED TO GO. THE PLT STARTED THE ENG & TAXIED TO THE END OF THE RWY. THE ACFT WAS THEN OBSERVED TO TAKEOFF & BEGIN A RGT TURN, THEN THE WITNESS LOST SIGHT OF THE PLANE. MOMENTS LATER, HE HEARD THE SOUNDS OF THE PLANE CRASHING. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE ACFT HAD COLLIDED WITH TREES & CRASHED ON ARPT PROPERTY, ABOUT 500 FT ENE FROM THE APCH END OF RWY 28. NO PREIMPACT MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS EVIDENT. TOXICOLOGY CHECKS SHOWED THE PLT HAD A BLOOD/ALCOHOL LVL OF 0.08% & A URINE/ALCOHOL LVL OF OF ABOUT 0.14%. THE PASSENGERS HAD BLOOD/ALCOHOL LVLS OF 0.03% & 0.07%.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO86FA021
- Event ID
- 20001213X33225
- Case number
- BFO86FA021
- 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: 580f3a1915e75f3ab008b98e50dca1fb3c9e041561724b418f69e7543bd9657f; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:37:00.079Z.