ATL83FLJ01 · Piper PA-28-140
Colonial Aviation Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of engine power en route
From Wilmington International Airport (ILM) to W70 · Williamsburg, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FLJ01
- 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
- Visual 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
- N98302
- Operator
- Colonial Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wilmington International Airport (ILM), Wilmington, NCTo W70 · Williamsburg, VA
- 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 engine power
- 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
- 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
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH TREES DURING AN ATTEMPTED EMERGENCY LANDING. THE ACFT WAS 5 MILES FORM AN AIRPORT. THE PILOT HAD CALLED ON UNICOM AND SAID HE WAS LOST AND HAD PARTIAL POWER LOSS. HE ASKED IF ANYONE COULD HEAR HIM AND HE DIDNOT BELIEVE HE COULD MAKE THE AIRPORT AS HE WAS TOO LOW. HE WAS GIVEN THE NDB FREQUENCY FOR THE AIRPORT. HE WAS ADVISED THAT HE WAS TOO FAR AWAY TO BE HEARD. IN HIS LAST TRANSMISSION THE PILOT SAID HE DID NOT HAVE THE AIRPORT IN SIGHT AND WAS NOT SURE OF HIS LOCATION. HE SAID HE WAS GOING TO LAND OFF THE AIRPORT. WHEN THERE WERE NO FURTHER TRANSMISSIONS THESHERIFF'S OFFICE WAS NOTIFIED. NO MECHANICAL IRREGULARITY COULD BE FOUND IN THE AIRFRAME OR ENGINE THAT COULD HAVE PRODUCED A LOSS OF POWER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FLJ01
- Event ID
- 20001214X41926
- Case number
- ATL83FLJ01
- 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: df5d2b21406a38ac1b44e4f450262af3476e704528d9d4367c4276cc04f82dfe; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:16:21.278Z.