ATL83IA050 · Boeing 737-201
Piedmont Airlines Boeing 737-201 · Incident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Buffalo, NY to Winston-Salem, NC
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operation. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83IA050
- 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
- Incident
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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
Boeing 737-201
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N798N
- Operator
- Piedmont Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo, NYTo Winston-Salem, 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 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 final 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Weather condition › Windshear
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Winston-Salem, NC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE FLT FROM BUFFALO WAS REPORTED AS CHOPPY & THE CHOP CONTINUED DURING THE DESCENT. WX WAS NOTED ON THE AIRBORNE RADAR SW & NW OF THE ARPT. AS THE ACFT APPROACHED THE OUTER MARKER THE CREW OBSERVED CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING NEAR THE ARPT & WERE INFROMED THAT A THUNDERSTORM WAS 2-3 MI WEST OF THE ARPT, MOVING TOWARDS THE ARPT. THE RAIN WAS LIGHT AT THE OUTER MARKER, BUT AS THEY PROCEEDED INBOUND THE INTENSITY INCREASED. THE PLT STATED HE THOUGHT THEY HAD MORE SPACE TO FLARE. HE REPORTED THAT THE LANDING WAS NOT HARD, BUT THE ACFT BOUNCED & ON THE SECOND CONTACT THE NOSE CAME DOWN TO THERWY. THE NOSE GEAR HAD COLLAPSED AFT INTO THE LOWER FUSELAGE DAMAGING THE BULKHEAD AT STATION 294.5. THE FLIGHT RECORDERREADOUT REVEALED A SUDDEN INCREASE IN AIRSPEED & SINK RATE DURING THE LAST 8 SECS PRIOR TO RWY CONTACT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83IA050
- Event ID
- 20020917X04339
- Case number
- ATL83IA050
- 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 1982-12-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a1adddd47d22e39acec362b1feb73818f7cf039a1b15fb06951846c6abc1a050; retrieved 2026-09-23T23:51:48.079Z.