CHI07FA102 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF) to Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07FA102
- 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
- 3 · 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-28-180
- 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
- N8969J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF), Jefferson City, MOTo Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL), Muscle Shoals, AL
- 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 · 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was in cruise flight at 5,000 feet mean sea level (msl) on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan prior to the accident. Radar track data indicated that the flight was on course toward the intended destination when radar contact and voice communications were lost. Communications had been routine to that point, and the pilot had not informed air traffic control of any difficulties regarding the flight. Witnesses reported hearing an airplane engine, and saw what appeared to be one or two objects exit the clouds near their location. They notified authorities, and a search located the accident site that evening. The site was about one-quarter mile from the final radar data point. A postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies associated with a preimpact failure or malfunction. Weather data indicated that the flight was operating in instrument meteorological conditions at the time. The data was also consistent with in-flight icing and turbulence in the vicinity of the accident. IFR conditions prevailed near the accident site, with cloud tops reaching 10,000 feet msl or higher. The freezing level in the vicinity was about 5,000 feet msl, and a 70-percent probability of icing was predicted at that altitude. The pilot's logbook indicated that he had about 75 hours instrument flight time, including 5.7 hours in actual instrument conditions. He had completed an instrument proficiency check (IPC) about one month prior to the accident flight. During the 6-month period prior to the accident flight, he had logged 1.5 hours simulated instrument flight time, 3 instrument approaches and one holding procedure as part of the IPC. He had also logged 0.4 hours actual instrument time during that 6-month timeframe separate from the IPC. Because of the lack of any physical evidence suggesting a failure or malfunction of the airframe or engine, it is likely the pilot lost control of the airplane while flying in difficult instrument meteorological conditions that included icing and turbulence.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of aircraft control during cruise flight in instrument meteorological conditions. Factors contributing to the accident were turbulence and icing conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07FA102
- Event ID
- 20070420X00440
- Case number
- CHI07FA102
- 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: 89963fca8bf1c5636785718130afa0fbcc0ec5152e2b2ccc6ce02001aa98fd00; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:44:16.694Z.