FTW86FA031 · Piper PA-31P-350
Piper PA-31P-350 · Accident on approach
From Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86FA031
- 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
- 2 · 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-31P-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N9253Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP), Greer, SCTo not recorded
- 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 · IFR missed 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Airspeed, improper
- Pilot in command › Maneuver, excessive
- Pilot in command › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Weather condition › Below approach/landing minimums
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT INITIATED AN ILS APCH IN BELOW MINIMUM WEATHER CONDITIONS SHORTLY AFTER NIGHT FALL. HE WAS GIVEN A LOW ALT ALERT, BUT CONTINUED THE APCH. HE ANNOUNCED A MISSED APCH, AND INDICATED PROBLEMS CLIMBING TO ALT. HE THEN DECLARED AN UNSPECIFIED EMERGENCY, AND REQUESTED VECTORS TO A LARGER ARPT, IN SPITE OF WORSENING WEATHER CONDITIONS. HE REACHED AN ALT OF 2100 FT, BUT COMMENCED ANOTHER ILS APCH DESPITE PREVIOUS DIFFICULTIES. RADAR DATA INDICATES EXCESSIVE MANEUVERING TO INTERCEPT THE INBOUND COURSE, WITH WIDE VARIATIONS IN GROUNDSPEED AND ALT. FOLLOWING A STEEP CLIMB AT A LOW GROUNDSPEED, THE ACFT DISAPPEARED BELOW RADAR COVERAGE. WITNESSES INDICATED IRREGULAR ENGINE SOUNDS AS THE ACFT MADE A TIGHT LEVEL TURN AT LOW ALT PRIOR TO IMPACTING TREES IN A NEAR LEVEL ATTITUDE. ON-SCENE EVIDENCE SHOWS POWER WAS BEING PRODUCED FROM BOTH ENGINES UPON IMPACT. POST-IMPACT FIRE CONSUMED THE WRECKAGE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86FA031
- Event ID
- 20010110X00162
- Case number
- FTW86FA031
- 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 1986-01-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 37bbcfb0b308890e8d6be9ad822d5aacd861b87087bb95e5ddaf343e272c4057; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:42:42.257Z.