MIA02FA173 · Piper PA-32R-301T
Piper PA-32R-301T · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA) to Orlando Executive Airport (ORL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA02FA173
- 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
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32R-301T
- 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
- N106JG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palm Beach County Park Airport (LNA), Lantana, FLTo Orlando Executive Airport (ORL), Orlando, FL
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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 › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While in cruise flight at 7,000 feet, the pilot requested a descent to 5,000 feet, and was subsequently cleared to 5,000 feet. The controller noted that the flight had ascended to 7,500 feet. About the same time the pilot radioed, "gyro's out one oh six juliet gulf." The last radar return showed the flight at an altitude of 900 feet, and had descended at a rate of about 11,143 feet per minute. Examination of the wreckage showed that the right wing, vertical stabilizer, and the stabilator had separated in flight, due to overstress. Weather and tracking data showed that at the time of the radio transmission to Air Traffic Control that, the gyro was out, the airplane was penetrating intense to extreme weather echoes level 5 to level 6; containing thunderstorms that contained heavy rain, instrument metrological conditions, up and downdrafts, horizontal gusts, and turbulence of at least moderate intensity. The pilot had contacted the Automated Flight Service Station, and requested weather along the route of flight. The specialist reported low levels of precipitation with thunderstorm activity. There was no evidence to show that the Automated Flight Service Station specialist provided the pilot with forecasted adverse weather conditions. In addition, there was no evidence to indicate that the FAA, Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZMA), Sector 3 Vero Beach Terminal Radar (R3) controller advised the pilot of the pertinent information on observed weather areas, displayed on his radarscope. There was no evidence found to indicate that the gyros had failed or malfunctioned.
Probable cause
the pilot's continued flight into known severe weather, resulting in an in-flight separation of the right wing, vertical stabilizer and the stabilator. Factors in this accident were heavy thunderstorm, and failure of the FAA controllers to provide the pilot information on observed weather areas, and the specialist at the AFSS to provide the pilot with forecasted adverse weather conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA02FA173
- Event ID
- 20020930X05244
- Case number
- MIA02FA173
- 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: b0e71f2bc5eab3dc0eb5018ef2b228c7b0e170aa4aee240a21d6ae3b2492f2f1; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:45:32.643Z.