ATL83LA279 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From New Market Airport (8W2) to HDI · Cleveland, TN
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83LA279
- 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
- 0 · 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-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
- N55703
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Market Airport (8W2), New Market, VATo HDI · Cleveland, 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT DEPARTED ON A X-COUNTRY FLT WITHOUT OBTAINING A WX BRIEFING. HE INDICATED THAT DURING THE FLT, HE WAS FLYING OVER A BROKEN SKY CONDITION & REPORTED THAT THE VOR WENT BAD. AFTER FLYING ABOUT 5 HRS, HE BECAME UNSURE OF HIS LOCATION. WITH THE FUEL RUNNING LOW, THE PLT ELECTED TO LAND ON AN INTERSTATE HIGHWAY. THE ACFT WAS SPACED ABOUT 300 FT BEHIND A TRACTOR TRAILER TRUCK FOR A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING. HOWEVER, DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE PLT LOST CONTROL & THE ACFT WENT OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY & NOSED OVER. THE PLT BELIEVED THAT HE HAD ENCOUNTERED WAKE TURBULENCE BEHIND THE TRUCK. THE PLT WAS NOT INSTRUMENT RATED & REPORTED ONLY 1.5 HRS OF INSTRUMENT TIME.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83LA279
- Event ID
- 20001214X43620
- Case number
- ATL83LA279
- 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: 078ba3f39aad1e56055aa54d41cf21d54c63dced7638e25c01cafb47fc6c8915; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:45:30.128Z.