Piper PA-28-140 N428FL

Summary

On 27 August 2000 at about 16:14 local time, a Piper PA-28-140 registered N428FL was involved in an accident near Poway, California, United States. One person was on board and one died. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

27 August 2000 at 16:14

Classification

Accident

Location

Poway, California, United States

Coordinates

32.9700, -117.0191

Aircraft

Piper PA-28-140

Registration

N428FL

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

El Cajon → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

IMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

LAX00FA314

1 person died.

The pilot's intentional flight into known adverse weather.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The aircraft impacted a mountain ridge at 2,375 feet msl. A witness, who held a private pilot certificate, was hiking atop the mountain and heard the aircraft approach and impact the mountain about 200 to 300 yards from his position. The witness reported there was a solid stratus cloud layer in the valley below, with the cloud tops about 100 feet below the peak of the mountain [2,696 feet msl]. As he listened, the airplane approached from the south and passed nearby to the west. The aircraft was near but was not visible to the witness. The engine "was running healthy and normally at or near full power." Next he heard a "loud, muffled thud," there was an explosion, and then an orange fireball was visible from near the top of the clouds. Overcast cloud bases were at 1,000 feet msl at the nearest weather reporting point, 9 miles south. Recorded radar data for the last 1 minute 37 seconds of the flight, showed the aircraft, initially, westbound at 1,500 feet climbing to 1,800 feet, about 1 mile south of the accident site. The airplane then made a right turn to a northerly heading and, in the final minute, climbed from 1,800 feet to 2,400 feet. The last radar return was near the accident site with the aircraft at 2,400 feet. The pilot received an outlook weather briefing the evening before the accident that accurately forecast the weather conditions at the time of the accident. No mechanical anomalies were found with the aircraft.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.