Osteen Florida: Piper Malibu Crash
Pictured: A Piper PA-46-310P Malibu
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Patric Borg
What: Piper PA-46-310P
Where: Osteen Florida
When: June 14, 2002
Who: 3 fatalities
Why: The pilot asked to deviate because he saw “a hole” in the weather. Radar showed a cluster of thunderstorms, level three to four were present in the vicinity of N9143B’s position. N9143B started an uncontrolled descent from FL260 (about 27,500 feet msl). Witnesses reported hearing the engine make a winding noise.?The airplane come out of the clouds about 300 feet above the ground, in a nose low spiral, and the right wing was missing. The ilot’s inadequate weather evaluation resulted in in-flight separation of the right wing and right horizontal stabilizer and the subsequent loss of control and crash.
