WPR23LA236 · Piper PA-46-310P
Piper PA-46-310P · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Mount Sterling Montgomery County Airport (IOB) to ADP · Arkadelphia, AR
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA236
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-46-310P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-46
- 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
- N146MS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Possible conflict
- From Mount Sterling Montgomery County Airport (IOB), Mount Sterling, KYTo ADP · Arkadelphia, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1984)
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that light rain and trace clear air icing were forecast along his intended route of flight, and he encountered those conditions during climb out. As the airplane was climbing through 14,000 ft mean sea level (msl) in instrument meteorological conditions, he noticed the airspeed had decreased 10-15 knots. He checked the wings for ice and did not notice any accumulation but activated the pitot heat at that time as a precaution. After the pitot heat was activated the Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Multi-Function Display (MFD) displayed a red X and went black. Subsequently, the autopilot commanded the airplane to descend. The pilot reported that he was unable to read his standby instruments due to the violent shaking of the airplane during the descent. As the airplane emerged into VMC conditions, the airplane was in an unusual attitude. He disconnected the autopilot and was able to recover the airplane to a level attitude. At this time, the PFD and MFD operation returned. An air traffic controller reported to the pilot that he had lost about 5,000 ft in altitude and airspeed had increased over 200 kts. The pilot responded that his avionics were working again, and that the aircraft was operating normally. He continued with the flight and landed without further incident. Substantial damage was discovered to both wings following the flight. The airplane’s “Before Takeoff checklist” calls for the pitot heat to be activated for flight into icing conditions when visible moisture below +5° C, is anticipated or encountered. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector examined the airplane after the event and verified the pitot heat was operational. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the pilot failing to activate the pitot heat in a timely manner, which allowed ice to accumulate on the pitot static system. The PFD, MFD, and autopilot subsequently malfunctioned and the pilot lost control of the airplane.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to activate the pitot heat in a timely manner during flight into icing conditions, which resulted in a temporary failure of the flight instruments and a subsequent loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA236
- Event ID
- 20230623192427
- Case number
- WPR23LA236
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 917f6d69e0f6f5d3608628079e37fd54d04b8fd753e1085bf6e2255700460083; retrieved 2026-09-16T17:45:30.985Z.