BFO96FA034 · Piper PA-28R-180
Aviators Flying Club Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Tallahassee International Airport (TLH) to Bowman Field (LOU)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO96FA034
- 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
- 1 · 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-28R-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N7676J
- Operator
- Aviators Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tallahassee International Airport (TLH), Tallahassee, FLTo Bowman Field (LOU)
- 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 · VFR go-around
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall; Utility pole; Wire, static
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Low altitude flight/maneuver, excessive
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During an attempt to make a night landing at an unfamiliar airport, the pilot '...saw only blue lights...' and decided to execute a go-around. He added full throttle, but did not retract the landing gear. He said that he did not remember having any flaps down. The pilot reported that he entered a left turn and '...pulled too far aft on the yoke.' The pilot stated that he saw the stall warning light come on and felt the left wing drop. In his attempt to recover, the pilot pushed forward on the yoke to increase the airspeed. After lowering the nose of the airplane, the pilot saw obstruction(s) ahead, but was unable to avoid colliding with a utility pole and a supporting guide cable. The pilot stated that he had no mechanical problems with the airplane prior to impact. Postaccident examination of the damaged airplane revealed no evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunction.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain adequate airspeed, while maneuvering at low altitude, which resulted in an inadvertent stall, loss of altitude, and subsequent collision with obstructions (utility pole and supporting cable).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO96FA034
- Event ID
- 20001207X04956
- Case number
- BFO96FA034
- 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: 64f7c634264a2db2b385f078d7a7cf3f696476af930343273d81fe31e2e14e0d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:28:37.802Z.