Piedmont Airlines Flight 230
Piedmont Airlines (1948-1989) Fairchild FH-227 · Controlled flight into terrain
From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) to Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 35 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 37
- Survivors
- 2
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 2
- 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
- Airline
- 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
Fairchild FH-227
- Flight
- PI230
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild FH-227
- 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
- N712U
- Operator
- Piedmont Airlines (1948-1989)
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF)To Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport (ROA)
- 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 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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
- Collided with trees
- 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 › Delayed in initiating go-around
- Pilot in command › Misjudged distance and altitude
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Charleston, WV, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Piedmont Airlines Flight 230 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight within the United States of America operating from Louisville International Airport in Kentucky to Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport in West Virginia with stopovers at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and Charleston-Kanawha County Airport. On August 10, 1968, the aircraft operating the route, a Fairchild Hiller FH-227B crashed at approximately 08:57 local time, 360 ft short of runway 23 at Charleston, killing 35 of the 37 people on board.
Accident
From their stopover at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Flight 230 would fly to Charleston-Kanawha County Airport, then fly to Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport within the state of Virginia. The flight took off from Cincinnati at 8:05 CDT, and planned to land at 8:57. The weather at Charleston was reported to be foggy with low visibility near the threshold, so the crew attempted an ILS approach, but without a glideslope. At 8:52, Flight 230 was cleared to land on runway 23. At 8:57, at about 360 ft from the runway threshold, the aircraft struck a steep hill while attempting a go-around. The plane bounced back up into the air, now on fire and missing part of the wing. Leaning to the right, the aircraft descended until they ended up off to the right of runway 23. During this, two passengers were ejected from the aircraft, 27 year old Tom Voignier and 19 year old Barb Schiller.
Barb recalled that when the airplane crashed, she “blacked out” and woke up with “foam all over us”. Tom shared in an interview later in 2008 that his injuries consisted of a crushed vertebra, internal bleeding, multiple torn ligaments within his right knee, a broken right ankle, and a broken neck. Miraculously, he never ended up becoming paralyzed despite the neck wounds.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Just a year before the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board was founded to replace the Civil Aeronautics Board. However, this did not play a role in the investigation and its outcome. The investigation lasted nearly a year, with the final report being released on August 4, 1969. The final report listed 6 findings:
There was no failure or malfunction of the aircraft, powerplants, propellers, or other systems.
The crew was properly certified and qualified for the flight.
The aircraft was being operated in visual meteorological conditions until approximately 6 seconds before the crash, when it entered a shallow fog overlying the approach lights and the approach end of Runway 23.
Visual range in the final portion of the approach zone and over the Runway 23 threshold was 500 feet or less in the fog.
Because of the visual guidance segment available in the initial part of the approach, the pilot would have no way of judging the visual range in fog until the moment of penetration.
Descent below MI% into the restricted visibility was permissible under present regulations.
With these findings, the NTSB was able to rule that the accident was the fault of the pilots. The probable cause states:The Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was an unrecognized loss of altitude orientation during the final portion of an approach into shallow, dense fog. The disorientation was caused by a rapid reduction in the ground guidance segment available to the pilot, at a point beyond which a go-around could not be successfully effected.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Piedmont Airlines Flight 230” (revision 1339309503, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
UNRECOGNIZED LOSS OF ALTITUDE ORIENTATION DURINGFINAL PORTION OF APCH INTO SHALLOW, DENSE FOG.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Piedmont Airlines Flight 230
- Article
- Piedmont Airlines Flight 230
- Revision
- 1339309503 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q134521400
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19680810P023246
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Piedmont Airlines Flight 230" (page 73230253, revision 1339309503); merged with NTSB case NTSB19680810P023246 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19680810P023246: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Piedmont Airlines Flight 230" and NTSB case NTSB19680810P023246, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.