ATL95FA174 · Piper PA-44-180
Piper PA-44-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Macon Downtown Airport (MAC) to Macon Downtown Airport (MAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL95FA174
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-44-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-44
- 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
- N2160E
- Operator
- Matthias Dahlheim
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Macon Downtown Airport (MAC), Macon, GATo Macon Downtown Airport (MAC), GA
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Decision height, below
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and his safety pilot were both instrument and multiengine rated. They were on an instrument flight plan, and were executing an ILS approach to runway 11. The weather was in part: 300 feet overcast and 3 miles visibility with fog. The pilot had received a weather briefing, and reported that he had received the local ATIS at the airport. During the approach, the airplane collided with a 100 foot tall and a 150 foot tall pine tree, then crashed to the ground. Impact occurred about 1/2 mile from the approach end of runway 11. No preimpact failure of the engines, controls, or instruments was found during the investigation.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper IFR procedure by allowing the airplane to descend below the ILS glideslope and by continued descent below the decision height. Factors relating to the accident were: darkness, low ceiling, and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL95FA174
- Event ID
- 20001207X04418
- Case number
- ATL95FA174
- 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: ff6f58020da3b2ef7762e08a2014173dade0fdd21548c458a37ff2d2bd4f1a09; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:35:30.166Z.