WPR24FA040 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Las Cruces International Airport (LRU) to Botter Farm Heliport (1TT8)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24FA040
- 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
- Unknown
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
- N7763W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Las Cruces International Airport (LRU), Las Cruces, NMTo Botter Farm Heliport (1TT8), Bulverde, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 59 years (built 1964)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The non-instrument-rated pilot departed on a visual flight rules (VFR) cross-country flight while marginal VFR and instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) were present along the route. Following a planned en route fuel stop, the pilot deviated from the planned flight route and altitude. Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data showed that for the next six hours the pilot maneuvered around adverse weather conditions at low altitudes and made two stops at airports not listed on the flight plan. Before the first stop, one of the passengers sent a text message telling the pilot’s parents that they had to turn back because the weather was not good. The text message included a photograph depicting the airplane operating in an area with a low cloud layer and visible moisture. The pilot delayed his departure from the second unplanned airport stop for about two and a half hours for unknown reasons. After departing at night, the pilot continued to maneuver at a low altitude, and not directly toward his original destination. It is likely that the combination of low cloud ceilings, dark conditions, and the pilot’s limited experience with instrument flight, resulted in the pilot not maintaining sufficient altitude to clear the hilly terrain while trying to maintain VFR flight. The ADS-B data, impact trajectory, and the wreckage distribution were consistent with spatial disorientation. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. The continuation of the cross-country flight at night with forecast IMC is consistent with the pilot’s overconfidence in his flying abilities.
Probable cause
The non-instrument-rated pilot’s continued visual flight into night instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s overconfidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24FA040
- Event ID
- 20231126193423
- Case number
- WPR24FA040
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-11-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bfe04d47d4f746a744576563bc83659dab357b8095091e25d1b96113e4bb91d0; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:08:26.490Z.