ATL83FA145 · Piper PA-34-200T
Piper PA-34-200T · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Painesville, OH to Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FA145
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-34-200T
- 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
- N5885V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Painesville, OHTo Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA), Roanoke, 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
- Approach
- 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
- 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 › Planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS ON A X-COUNTRY FROM BUFFALO, NY TO NEW PORT RICHEY, FL. THE PLT MADE AN EN ROUTE STOP AT PAINSVILLE, OH, THEN PROCEEDED TOWARD GREENSBORO, NC. WHILE EN ROUTE, HE ELECTED TO LAND AT ROANOKE, VA BECAUSE HIS FUEL WOULD BE LOW IF HE CONTINUED TO GREENSBORO. AT ROANOKE, THE PLT BEGAN THE LDA APPROACH TO RWY 05. THE WEATHER WAS REPORTED, IN PART, AS: 200 FT BROKEN, 400 FT OVERCAST, VISIBILITY 2 MI WITH LIGHT RAIN & FOG. THE MINIMUMS FOR THE PRECISION APPROACH WAS 400 FT CEILING & 1 MI VISIBILITY. AT 1152:37, THE PLT HAD BEGUN A MISSED APPROACH. SHORTLY AFTER THAT, HE WAS ADVISED HE WAS FLYING TOWARD HIGH TERRAIN & WAS PROVIDED VECTORS. A SHORT TIME LATER, THE RADAR CONTROLLER NOTED THAT THE ACFT DESCENDED FROM 2800 TO 1800 FT, THEN RADAR CONTACT WAS LOST. A WITNESS SAW THE ACFT MANEUVERING AT 75 TO 100 FT AGL, JUST BEFORE IT IMPACTED A TREE & A TV TRANSMISSION LINE. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO EVIDENCE OF A PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE. AN ESTIMATION OF FUEL COMPUTATION INDICATED ONLY ABOUT 23 GAL WOULD BE REMAINING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FA145
- Event ID
- 20001214X42333
- Case number
- ATL83FA145
- 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: 2c089642b79bfff989b4a6b63d841ac562bfe1eb1cb69be180c0c62b4ee2b1b4; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:00:21.764Z.