Ram Air Freight Piper PA32R-300 accident
Piper PA32R-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object en route
From Pitt-Greenville Airport (PGV) to Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (JQF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02FA067
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N4451X
- Operator
- Ram Air Freight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pitt-Greenville Airport (PGV), Greenville, NCTo Concord-Padgett Regional Airport (JQF), Concord, NC
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Tower (marked)
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident airplane was on a Title 14 CFR Part 135 non scheduled cargo flight, when it collided a 1749 ft AGL (2149 ft MSL) communications tower. The airplane exploded on impact and the tower collapsed. The resulting debris was spread over an area of about 700 yards. A witness stated that he, his wife, and their two children were in their front yard, and they heard an aircraft engine. They all turned around to look at the airplane and he said he noted that the airplane was flying "westward or into the sun." He stated that as the airplane approached the tower, it appeared to have been lower than other airplanes he had seen fly over the tower previously. He stated that the airplane appeared to hit a guy wire, and that he did not notice any attempt to correct the flight path before the collision occurred. He also said that there had been no signs of trouble with the airplane's engine. As the airplane collided, it "jolted to the left, and exploded in mid air." He said that the collision appeared to have occurred about 3/4 of the way up the tower, and about 4 or 5 seconds after the explosion, the tower fell in the direction that the aircraft had been traveling. He said that at the time of the accident, the sky was clear, and the tower was visible. The Sanford -Lee County Regional Airport 1701, surface weather observation was, clear skies, winds from 160 degrees at 6 knots, visibility 10 statute miles, temperature 22 degrees C, dewpoint temperature 14 degrees C, altimeter setting 30.06 inHg. Examination of debris and associated impact marks on the tower structure revealed that the airplane impacted the tower at the 1425-foot level, and that there were no signs of preaccident anomalies with the airframe, flight controls or engine. At the time of the accident the sun was at an altitude of 22 degrees on a bearing of 250 degrees from the accident site. The accident airplane was being flown on a magnetic heading of about 265 degrees.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout and his failure to maintain obstacle clearance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02FA067
- Event ID
- 20020320X00366
- Case number
- MIA02FA067
- 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: 607ec9aae68c5e4106241bad7bac5370799bf056c35440ad948ecfa6f2c3cb01; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:06:21.548Z.