ATL02FA008 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From OM5 · Waverly, TN to Clarksville–Montgomery County Regional Airport (CKV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02FA008
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N43334
- Operator
- Beth Jenkins
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OM5 · Waverly, TNTo Clarksville–Montgomery County Regional Airport (CKV), Clarksville, 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Visual flight rules (VFR) flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)
- 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 control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
- Pilot in command › VFR flight into imc, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot's original destination was Clarksville, Tennessee. However, because of adverse weather conditions in Clarksville, the pilot diverted to Waverly, Tennessee. The pilot contacted the Nashville automated Flight Service Station at about 2200 and again at about 0100 for a weather brief. The pilot limited the brief by only asking what Ft. Campbell, was reporting for visibility. At both times Ft. Campbell, Kentucky was reporting less then three miles visibility and fog. Shortly after 0130, the non-instrument rated private pilot, initiated VFR flight into IMC conditions. The airplane was last seen on radar at about 0155 in the vicinity of the accident site, circling, at about 1600 feet mean sea level. Examination of the wreckage found that the airplane had cartwheeled left wing first, then the nose, followed by the right wing, until it came to rest against a tree line. Further examination did not reveal evidence of mechanical malfunction, and there was no evidence of pilot impairment or incapacitation.
Probable cause
The pilot initiated a VFR flight into known IMC conditions which resulted in a loss of control of the airplane due to spatial disorientation. Factors were the low ceilings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02FA008
- Event ID
- 20011108X02213
- Case number
- ATL02FA008
- 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, coordinates. 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: 594f9af95d55bf43c2e87a94187f110ad10aed37c3ec7eb67b929e6760c75be3; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:18:27.501Z.