What happened
On the afternoon of 17 March 2015, a privately owned Piper PA-32RT-300T, registered as C-GDWA, departed from Sudbury, Ontario. The flight was intended to be an instrument flight rules operation traveling to Winston Salem, North Carolina, with three people on board.
While flying approximately 30 nautical miles south of the Sudbury Airport at 10,000 feet, the pilot contacted air traffic control to report an aircraft problem and indicated an intention to return to the airport. Controllers cleared the aircraft to a lower altitude and monitored its descent via radar. During this descent, the aircraft's radar signature became intermittent, appearing at 8,900 feet, 6,300 feet, and 3,800 feet before disappearing entirely. Shortly after the final radar contact, the aircraft's emergency locator transmitter sent a brief signal to the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system.
Search efforts located the wreckage the next morning. The investigation revealed that the aircraft had broken apart during flight, with debris scattered up to 6,500 feet from the primary impact site. A post-crash fire consumed much of the main wreckage. The accident, which occurred at approximately 1534 Eastern Daylight Time, resulted in 3 fatalities.
The investigation
The investigation focused on the sequence of events leading to the loss of radar contact and the subsequent destruction of the aircraft. Investigators examined the radar data, the emergency locator transmitter signal, and the wreckage distribution to determine the nature of the in-flight breakup. The investigation also looked into the operational conditions of the flight and the pilot's recent flight history.