Piper PA28 accident near Whitesville, KY
On September 28, 2023, a Piper PA28 (airplane) was involved in an accident near Whitesville, KY. 2 people died. Damage to the aircraft: destroyed.
- Date
- September 28, 2023
- Place
- Whitesville, KY
- Aircraft
- Piper PA28 · Airplane
- Injuries
- 2 fatal, 0 serious, 0 minor
- Damage
- Destroyed
- Position
- 37.634°N, 86.890°W
- NTSB ID
- 20230928193156
Official records · ERA23FA380
- Public docket: reports, statements and exhibits from the investigation
Air traffic control records
- ATC - Partial Transcript: Transcript (PDF), on ntsb.gov
NTSB summary
HISTORY OF FLIGHTOn September 27, 2023, about 2249 central daylight time, a Piper PA-28-161, N3079M, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Whitesville, Kentucky. The flight instructor and student pilot were fatally injured. The airplane was operated by Eagle Flight Academy as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. According to the operator and the student pilot’s regular flight instructor, the accident flight instructor and student pilot were on the return portion of a night cross-country flight. The purpose of the flight was to satisfy the student pilot’s night flight training requirements before completing a private pilot practical examination. The accident flight was also the student pilot and accident flight instructor’s first time flying together. ADS-B data indicated that the airplane departed Bowling Green-Woodhurst Airport (BWG), Bowling Green, Kentucky, around 2155. The airplane climbed to 4,500 ft msl and proceeded on a northwesterly course toward Owensboro/Daviess County Regional Airport (OWB), Owensboro, Kentucky, on a visual flight rules flight plan. A post to the flight instructor’s social media account at 2215 (about 34 minutes before the accident) depicted an annotated image from a mobile-device-based aviation navigation tool. The image depicted the airplane’s current position northwest of Bowling Green, Kentucky, along with the planned route of flight to OWB. Weather radar imagery was also displayed in the image, which had been annotated with a circle around the flight track and nearby weather radar returns. Fi
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s improper decision to continue flight into a known area of thunderstorms, which resulted in an in-flight breakup.
More accidents in KY
- Bombardier, Inc. CRJ-100, Aug 27, 2006
- Piper PA-31T2, Feb 17, 1982
- Cessna 401A, Aug 28, 2006
- Piper PA-32R-301T, Apr 3, 1988
- Piper PA-32R-301, Mar 22, 2004
Browse: Kentucky · Piper aircraft
Source: NTSB aviation accident database (US government, public domain). Findings may be preliminary or later revised by the NTSB. Not a complete global record.
