ATL96LA024 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC) to EQY
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96LA024
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-32-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N4219T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus County Municipal Airport (CPC), Whiteville, NCTo EQY
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Object › Tree(s)
- Pilot in command › Decision height, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, as he approached the decision height on the ILS approach, he observed ground lights, but never established visual contact with runway 5. Unable to identify the runway, the pilot executed a missed approach. During the climbout, the airplane collided with a 75 foot tall tree 2000 feet from the approach end of the runway. The decision height for the approach is 306 feet above the ground. The pilot diverted to another airport and landed without further incident. No approved weather reporting facility was located at the airport. According to Title 14 CFR Part 135.225, no pilot may begin an instrument approach to an airport without an approved weather reporting facility; nor can the pilot descend below the decision height (DH) if actual weather conditions are less than the published minimums.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate planning and failure to follow operating procedures resulted in his descent below the decision height while on final approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96LA024
- Event ID
- 20001207X04951
- Case number
- ATL96LA024
- 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: 80c0c965700d9bb9a53edfa7ab0a50c3722c4e4ef265a39a82f093449d87129b; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:55:24.609Z.