FTW83FA087 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Agua Prieta to Janos
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83FA087
- 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
- 7 · 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
- Unknown
- 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-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- XAHIJ
- Operator
- Ignacia Valenzuela
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Agua PrietaTo Janos
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 › Design stress limits of aircraft, excessive
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT DEPARTED AGUE PRIETA, SONORA, MEXICO WITH NO FLT PLAN ON A FLT TO JANOS, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO. DRG DEPARTURE, THE PLT'S SON OBSERVED A DARK THREATENING CLOUD BANK IN THE DIRECTION OF FLT NEAR A MTN RANGE. WHEN THE ACFT DID NOT ARRIVE AT THE DESTINATION, A SEARCH WAS BEGUN WHICH WAS EXTENDED ON THE US SIDE OF THE BORDER. ON 1/15/82, A RANCHER FOUND THE WRECKAGE WHICH WAS SCATTERED OVER AN AREA EXCEEDING 1 MI IN LENGTH. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE TAIL ASSEMBLY, RIGHT WING, ABOUT 1/2 OF THE LEFT WING AND WINDSCREEN HAD SEPARATED IN FLT. NO EVIDENCE WAS FOUND THAT WOULD INDICATE A PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THE AIRCRAFT, ENGINE, PROPELLER OR ACCESSORIES, EXCEPT FOR SEPARATED COMPONENTS WHICH SHOWED EVIDENCE OF IN-FLT PLT INDUCED OVERLOADS. LOCAL RESIDENTS REPORTED A SEVERE SNOW STORM WITH HEAVY WET SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBILITIES AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT WAS NOT RATED FOR INSTRUMENT FLIGHT. DRG TKOF, THE ACFT WAS APRX 547 LBS OVER ITS MAX GROSS WEIGHT LIMIT, CG APRX 2 IN BEHIND AFT LIMIT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83FA087
- Event ID
- 20020917X04647
- Case number
- FTW83FA087
- 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. 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: d932134f16796ea78b795bf31eddbadbf2b3701876f33660fcbc2ca3334403bc; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:39:05.430Z.