ATL84MA208 · Piper PA-32-300
Circle C. Farms Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Warren County Memorial Airport (RNC) to Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84MA208
- 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
- 5 · 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
- Unknown
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
- N8640N
- Operator
- Circle C. Farms
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren County Memorial Airport (RNC), McMinnville, TNTo Fulton County Airport Brown Field (FTY), Atlanta, GA
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WITH A STUDENT PLT AT THE CONTROLS HAD AN IN-FLT BREAKUP DURING A NIGHT X-COUNTRY FLT. DURING A PREFLT WX BRIEFING, HE WAS ADVISED THAT VFR FLT WAS NOT RECOMMENDED. THE PLT TERMINATED THE CONVERSATION BEFORE THE BRIEFING WAS COMPLETED. WHILE IN FLT, THE PLT WAS IN RADIO & RADAR CONTACT WITH ATLANTA CENTER. AS THE FLT NEARED A THUNDERSTORM, THE PLT ASKED FOR RADAR ASSISTANCE. SHORTLY AFTER THAT, THE ACFT ENTERED A RIGHT TURN, & AFTER ABOUT 270 DEG OF TURN, RADAR & RADIO CONTACT WERE LOST. PARTS OF THE ACFT WERE FOUND SCATTERED OVER A WIDE AREA IN THE VICINITY OF WHERE RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THAT THE STABILATORS & WINGS HAD SEPARATED IN FLT. THERE WAS EVIDENCETHAT THEY HAD FAILED FROM OVERLOAD & THAT THE STABILATORS HAD FAILED DOWNWARD. A CHECK OF THE PLT'S LIVER FLUID SHOWED AN ALCOHOL LEVEL OF 0.092%. THE PLT WAS NOT ENDORSED FOR THIS NIGHT X-COUNTRY FLT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84MA208
- Event ID
- 20001214X39831
- Case number
- ATL84MA208
- 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: f3fb40cdfde13c2c6cc38c6a0439a997053c3a0f8a207351c32dfeba469c99f4; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:28:57.393Z.