FTW03FA016 · Piper PA-32-301
Piper PA-32-301 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Memorial Field Airport (HOT) to Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW03FA016
- 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
- 6 · 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-32-301
- 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
- N4353Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Memorial Field Airport (HOT), Hot Springs, ARTo Cape Girardeau Regional Airport (CGI), Cape Girardeau, MO
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to departure the non-instrument rated pilot contacted the Automated Flight Service Station and requested an en route weather briefing. The Specialist advised the pilot there was an Airmet currently valid for instrument flight rule conditions over the route of flight, but that conditions would be improving to marginal visual flight rule conditions later in the day. A witness, who resides 1 mile north of the accident site, went outside when he heard a small plane flying over his house at a low altitude. The witness said he heard changes in the sound of the engine but said it did not sound like it was cutting out, and that it was getting lower. On site documentation revealed that the aircraft collided with several trees. Post-accident examinations of the aircraft did not reveal any anomalies that would have prevented normal operations.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain altitude/clearance from terrain. Contributing factors were the low ceiling, the pilot's decision to fly in known adverse weather conditions, and his lack of an instrument rating.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW03FA016
- Event ID
- 20021028X05387
- Case number
- FTW03FA016
- 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: 89087b230512b5ad213c5dda25e16c55368d2ca4d0bb65352688fac85bc328b1; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:43:39.591Z.