ERA17FA108 · Piper PA28R 200
Flying Arrow Piper PA28R 200 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV) to George T Lewis Airport (CDK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17FA108
- 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
- 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
- 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 PA28R 200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N4504X
- Operator
- Flying Arrow
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV), Brooksville, FLTo George T Lewis Airport (CDK), Cedar Key, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1975)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument rated private pilot departed in the airplane in visual meteorological conditions, which prevailed along most of the route of the over-water cross-country flight. However, about 20 miles from the destination airport, the airplane encountered an area of instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) that consisted of overcast clouds with bases about 400 ft above the water. According to GPS data, when the airplane reached this area, it began to descend from a cruising altitude of 2,400 ft. About 7 minutes later, at an altitude of about 1,000 ft, the airplane began a left, descending, 180° turn during which the altitude fluctuated until the data ended about 600 ft above the water near the accident site. The airplane continued to descend until it impacted the water. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot had logged only 4.6 hours of simulated instrument experience and had no documented actual instrument experience. No evidence was found indicating that the pilot obtained an official weather briefing before the flight. If he had obtained such a briefing, he would have been told that visual flight rules (VFR) flight was not recommended due to IMC near the destination airport. Given the instrument conditions in the destination area and the pilot's limited instrument flying experience, it is likely that the pilot attempted to continue VFR flight into IMC, experienced spatial disorientation, and lost control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The non-instrument-rated pilot's improper decision to continue visual flight rules flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in spatial disorientation and a loss of airplane control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17FA108
- Event ID
- 20170215X21447
- Case number
- ERA17FA108
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 84ce3d9ebc856bdf39a4264d305ce1e2eba13e21d925e6b2287aea4d3b502a28; retrieved 2026-09-15T05:58:37.244Z.