Island Hoppers Piper PA 28-161 accident
Piper PA 28-161 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA) to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04FA190
- 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
- 0 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA 28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8198A
- Operator
- Island Hoppers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), KAILUA/KONA, HITo Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole (KOA), KAILUA/KONA, HI
- 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 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 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
During a for hire sightseeing tour flight, the airplane impacted rising mountainous volcanic terrain following the pilot's encounter with deteriorating weather. The pilot had been employed by the operator for 11 days prior to the accident and this flight was the pilot's first 14 CFR Part 135 revenue tour flight. Two pilots were interviewed who had flown the route shortly before the accident flight. They both reported encountering low visibility and light rain in the area of the accident. They conducted their flights along the shoreline to avoid the weather conditions. After departure, the pilot was flying south along a highway between the mountains and the coast. The passengers said that within 10 minutes of takeoff, they began to encounter weather conditions that would "get bad, clear up, and get bad again." Both passengers believed the pilot was trying to get out of the clouds. The passengers stated that they were in the clouds and then suddenly they could see the mountain in front of them and the airplane hit the ground. The pilot stated that the airplane remained clear of the clouds, but encountered a severe downdraft and turbulence that she was maneuvering to get out of when the airplane hit the mountain. A review of the weather reports, forecasts, and satellite data for the area of the accident was conducted. Clouds covered the accident site. Upper air data analysis showed the potential for mountain wave activity with maximum vertical velocities of 100 feet per minute. An AIRMET was valid for the time and location of the accident and called for potential moderate turbulence below 6,000 feet. No evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunction or failure was found during an examination of the wreckage.
Probable cause
The pilot's continued flight into adverse weather conditions that resulted in an in-flight collision with mountainous terrain. Factors in the accident were rising terrain, low clouds and rain, and the pilot's lack of familiarity with the geographic area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04FA190
- Event ID
- 20051205X01931
- Case number
- LAX04FA190
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2004-04-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2748fba4aafbc7381e34658dd21c5ce4b247bac4c32be26a071008a0a1d86ac4; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:26:37.036Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N8198A; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.