NYC96LA165 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: overrun during landing
From North Central State Airport (SFZ) to RI04
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA165
- 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
- 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
- N8121K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Central State Airport (SFZ), Pawtucket, RITo RI04
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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 › Distance/speed, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of West Kingston, RI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane overran the runway during landing, and collided with trees. The pilot reported: 'I arrived overhead (the airport) about 2000 edt. By this time it was almost dark. I made about 4 or 5 passes, being high on each pass. Trees at the approach end of the runway made it difficult, as I couldn't see the top of the trees to judge my height relative to the end of the runway. On the last pass, I dropped it in almost halfway down the runway. It became obvious I was not going to stop in time, and it was too late for an (aborted landing). Knowing there was a precipitous drop at the end of the (runway), I veered to the left, hoping the soft earth would slow me to a stop. I hit the soft earth, and lost control, and ran into the trees.' No mechanical malfunction was reported by the pilot.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudgment of distance and speed during the approach to land, and his failure to go around while there was still sufficient runway remaining, which resulted in an overrun of the runway and collision with trees. The lack of natural lighting at dusk was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA165
- Event ID
- 20001208X06602
- Case number
- NYC96LA165
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-08-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5d2488677177820b983503adb5534bbc5b48fa3fd848c7af944108c9ee37d341; retrieved 2026-09-22T21:30:23.639Z.