CHI86FA141 · Piper PA-34-200
Piper PA-34-200 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Battle Creek Executive Airport at Kellogg Field (BTL) to Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI86FA141
- 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-34-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-34
- 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
- N44603
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Battle Creek Executive Airport at Kellogg Field (BTL), Battle Creek, MITo Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field) (CHA), Chattanooga, TN
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT DIVERTED INTO ANGOLA, AN AIRFIELD HE HAD NEVER LANDED AT BEFORE, DUE TO AN UNIDENTIFIED ELECTRICAL PROBLEM AT NIGHT. HE WAS GIVEN VECTORS TO THE AIRPORT AND REPORTED THE FIELD IN SIGHT. HE THEN SAID HE WAS GOING TO CIRCLE TO LOSE ALTITUDE PRIOR TO LANDING. ON VISUAL FINAL APPROACH, HE STRUCK THE ROOF OF A HOUSE AND CRASH LANDED ON A ROAD. HE WAS APPROX 1 DEGREE BELOW STANDARD GLIDE SLOPE WHEN HE STRUCK THE HOUSE. A LARGE QUANTITY OF UNSECURED PERSONAL BELONGINGS IN THE REAR OF THE PLANE FLEW FORWARD UPON IMPACT. THE PILOT WAS NOT WEARING THE SHOULDER HARNESS INSTALLED ABOVE HIS SEAT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI86FA141
- Event ID
- 20001213X33495
- Case number
- CHI86FA141
- 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 1986-05-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 140d06339eef5e9dd239568c2b3a9cbfb8bd9a55436a9f959c4986fa6acf1069; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:34:27.808Z.