Accident · 2004-05-10

What the record says

Event date

2004-05-10

Event type

Accident

Highest injury level

Fatal injury

Aircraft

Piper PA-44-180 (N304PA)

Operating rule

Part 91

Operator

PAN AM INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT ACADEMY Operator named in NTSB report

Operated by (per NTSB report)

PAN AM INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT ACADEMY

Probable cause

The incorrect use of an abbreviated callsign by the TRACON sector radar controller to issue a descent clearance to N434PA and the sector controllers failure to detect that the clearance had been read back with the full callsign by the pilot of N304PA. Also causal was the pilots failure to question a clearance that descended them below the published Minimum En route Altitude (MEA). Contributing to the accident was the failure of both the Center and TRACON controllers to properly respond to the aural and visual Minimum Safe Altitude Warning System (MSAW) alert.

Flight crew

Flight-crew details for this event aren't in the NTSB database extract we hold (its coverage starts with 2008 events) — a gap in our data, not an absence of crew.