BFO94LA148 · Piper PA -28-181
Piper PA -28-181 · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD) to Central Maine/Norridgewock Airport (OWK)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO94LA148
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA -28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA -28-181
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N11HK
- Operator
- Paul D Spiro · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD), Norwood, MATo Central Maine/Norridgewock Airport (OWK), Norridgewock, ME
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · aborted
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Skowhegan, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE VOLUNTEER, AIRLIFE PILOT STATED THAT HE RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING. HE STATED THAT UPON ARRIVAL AT HIS DESTINATION HE OVERFLEW THE AIRPORT AND HE SELECTED RUNWAY 3 AS THERE WAS SOME FOG IN THE AREA, BUT RUNWAY 3 WAS CLEAR OF FOG. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT ON FINAL APPROACH AS HE PASSED OVER THE APPROACH END OF RUNWAY 3 AT APPROXIMATELY 30 TO 50 FEET ABOVE THE RUNWAY, HE LOST SIGHT OF THE RUNWAY ENVIRONMENT. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE INCREASED THE POWER TO GO-AROUND, BUT AS HE STARTED HIS GO-AROUND THE RUNWAY CAME INTO SIGHT AGAIN, SO HE DECIDED TO LAND. THE PILOT STATED THAT DURING THE LANDING, HE REALIZED THAT THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH RUNWAY REMAINING SO HE TRIED TO GO-AROUND AGAIN. DURING THE CLIMB OUT AT ABOUT 20 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, THE AIRPLANE STRUCK TREES AT THE DEPARTURE END AND FELL TO THE GROUND. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THERE WAS NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to do a go around which resulted in an inflight collision with trees during a delayed aborted landing to avoid a runway overrun.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO94LA148
- Event ID
- 20001206X01971
- Case number
- BFO94LA148
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 62491a56c43311a290bac3a85ee7809a8960989abd2b22334950d691cf3a0c68; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:46:20.463Z.