ERA18FA197 · Piper PA32R 300
Piper PA32R 300 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC during initial climb
From Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ) to Wittman Regional Airport (OSH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18FA197
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA32R 300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N38523
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lincolnton Lincoln County Regional Airport (IPJ), Lincolnton, NCTo Wittman Regional Airport (OSH), Oshkosh, WI
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The noninstrument-rated private pilot and one passenger departed on a personal cross-country visual flight rules flight in dark night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) that included 1 1/2 statute miles visibility in mist and an overcast cloud layer 200 ft above ground level. The pilot did not obtain an official weather briefing before departing on the flight, and what preflight weather information he may have obtained could not be determined. Onboard data indicated that the airplane departed, entered a climbing left turn to a downwind leg for the runway, and about 1 minute after takeoff, entered a rapid left turning descent that continued to ground contact.Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
The restricted visibility due to the dark night and instrument conditions was conducive to the development of spatial disorientation, and the airplane's flight track was consistent with the known effects of spatial disorientation. According to a family member, the pilot stated that he was going to attend an air show and had planned to leave early in the morning for "a window of good weather." Despite not being instrument rated, the pilot likely chose to depart due to his self-induced pressure to complete the flight as planned. It is likely that the pilot's decision to depart into IMC resulted in his spatial disorientation and a subsequent loss of airplane control.
Probable cause
The noninstrument-rated pilot's intentional visual flight rules flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in a loss of control due to spatial disorientation. Contributing the accident was the pilot's self-induced pressure to complete the flight as planned.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18FA197
- Event ID
- 20180724X80900
- Case number
- ERA18FA197
- 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: 91be7259404f72a65953e4315820680db7665bba6db546e54eb6a6199bfe002c; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:44:48.261Z.