FTW97FA044 · Piper PA-28R-200
Delta Aeronautics Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI) to Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA044
- 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-28R-200
- 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
- N1394T
- Operator
- Delta Aeronautics
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Abilene Regional Airport (ABI), Abilene, TXTo Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW)
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Flightcrew › Decision height, continued below
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During dark night instrument meteorological flight conditions, the pilots (a CFI and a private pilot) of the single-engine airplane executed a missed approach after reaching decision height during an ILS approach with the airport below landing weather minimums (visibility 1/8 of a mile in fog). During a second ILS approach attempt, the airplane collided with power lines approximately 3/4 of a mile short of the runway threshold. The airplane, configured with the landing gear extended and the flaps extended 10 degrees, impacted the ground and a highway guardrail approximately 300 feet south of the power lines. No distress calls were received from the airplane. No discrepancies were found with the airplane or engine that could have prevented normal operation. Toxicological tests for the private pilot were positive for marihuana. The CFI had worked all day preceding the flight, and the private pilot had taken a 'nap' in the afternoon preceding the flight. ATC voice recordings revealed that both pilots were acknowledging radio transmissions prior to and during the approach, and it could not be determined which pilot was at the controls.
Probable cause
the pilots' continued descent of the aircraft below decision height. Factors contributing to the accident were the fog, the dark night illumination, one of the pilot's impairment due to use of marihuana, and both pilots' fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA044
- Event ID
- 20001208X07022
- Case number
- FTW97FA044
- 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: 379c16a7b297740ea0c3d5507f0e972bbee351b29dbee98942300b4b1592acd3; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:06:45.198Z.