ATL87FA030 · Piper AEROSTAR 601P AEROSTAR 6
Piper AEROSTAR 601P AEROSTAR 6 · Accident: uncontrolled altitude deviation en route
From Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN) to McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87FA030
- 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
- 4 · 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 AEROSTAR 601P AEROSTAR 6
- Aircraft type
- Piper AEROSTAR 601
- 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
- N122FP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN), New Bern, NCTo McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS), Knoxville, 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
- Uncontrolled altitude deviation
- 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 handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › Spiral, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE EN ROUTE ON AN IFR FLT PLAN AT FL180, THE PLT ACKNOWLEDGED INSTRUCTIONS TO DSCND TO 16,000'. LATER, THE RADAR CONTROLLER (CLTR) NOTICED THE ACFT HAD DEVIATE FM COURSE & WAS NOT REPLYING WITH MODE 'C' ALT INFO. THE CTLR REQD ALT INFO & THE PLT RESPONDED, '. . . I'VE LOST AN (AWFUL) LOT OF ALT, I GOT MIXED UP IN HERE & LOST ALT, I'M GOIN' BACK UP . . .' WHEN QUERIED, THE PLT RPRTD HE WAS AT 9000' & ACKNOWLEDGED INSTRUCTIONS TO CLIMB TO 14,000'. SHORTLY THERE- AFTER, THE ACFT ENTERED A SPIRAL, THEN RADIO & RADAR CONTACT WERE LOST. AN IN-FLT BREAK-UP OCCURRED & THE WRECKAGE FELL OVR A WIDESPREAD AREA. AN EXAM REVEALED EVIDENCE THE WINGS & RGT HORIZONTAL STABILIZER HAD FAILED FM OVERLOAD, WITH THE WINGS SEPARATING IN AN UPWARD DRCTN. A WX STUDY INDCD THERE WERE CLD LAYERS FM ABOUT 14,000' TO 20,000' WITH LGT TO MOD MIXED ICING IN CLDS ABV 14,000 FT. ALSO, LGT TO MOD TURBC WAS FORECAST BLO 20,000' & WIDELY SCATTERED, IMBEDDED TSTMS WERE FORECAST IN AN AREA NORTH OF THE ACDNT AREA. WITNESSES RPRTD CLDS & OCNL LIGHTNING TO THE EAST.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87FA030
- Event ID
- 20001213X35090
- Case number
- ATL87FA030
- 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: 2d169b39500720865beaaab9e3e3dd83bd7804c3eb26fb9150249c32b03c6f02; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:19:24.041Z.