FTW83FA384 · Piper PA-28-161
Aeronautics Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN) to Waco Regional Airport (ACT)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83FA384
- 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
- Unknown
Piper PA-28-161
- 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
- N8193Q
- Operator
- Aeronautics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deming Municipal Airport (DMN), Deming, NMTo Waco Regional Airport (ACT), Waco, TX
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT HAD POSTPONED THE FLT DUE TO WX CONDITIONS. DURING A FLT FROM DEMING, NM TO WACO, TX, THE ACFT SUBSEQUENTLY CRASHED WITHIN THE BOUNDRIES OF A PRIVATE ARPT, NORTHWEST OF EL PASO, TX. IMPACT OCCURRED IN A STEEP LEFT BANK, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. THE DEGREE OF DISINTEGRATION OF THE WRECKAGE INDICATED THE ACFT WAS TRAVELING AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED DURING IMPACT. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. THE ACCIDENT HAD OCCURRED DURING THE LAST STAGES OF HURRICANE ALICA. ABOUT 12 MI AWAY, THE 1850 MDT WX AT EL PASO WAS, IN PART: CLEAR, VISIBILITY 70 MI, WIND 250 DEG AT 4 KTS. HOWEVER, CUMULONIMBUS BUILDUPS WERE REPORTED IN ALL QUADRANTS & A UH-1 PLT REPORTED RAINSHOWERS & MODERATE TURBULENCE IN THE VICINITY OF THE CRASH SITE. A TOXICOLOGICAL CHECK OF THE PLT'S MUSCLE TISSUE FLUID SHOWED A CONCENTRATION OF 127MG% (.127%) ALCOHOL. THE PLT HAD VISION IN ONLY 1 EYE & WAS REQUIRED TO PERFORM A TEST OF DEMONSTRATED ABILITY ON EACH RENEWAL OF HIS MED CERT, BUT HE HAD FAILED TO DO SO; THEREFORE, HIS MED CERT WAS INVALID.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83FA384
- Event ID
- 20001214X44140
- Case number
- FTW83FA384
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-08-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 98a85e27ea644887b775bc0f81de10ffe24dceee7ee68dd5d71b68e194afabdf; retrieved 2026-09-21T06:19:21.201Z.