IAD98FA001 · Piper PA-32-260
Airways Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Lancaster Airport (LNS) to College Park Airport (CGS)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98FA001
- 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-32-260
- 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
- N7730J
- Operator
- Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lancaster Airport (LNS), Lancaster, PATo College Park Airport (CGS)
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot remarked that all systems on the airplane were fully operational and the flight to his destination went uneventfully. He descended to 1,500 feet MSL and entered the traffic pattern on the downwind leg. He selected 10 degrees of flaps on base leg, and while crossing the 194 foot displaced threshold for the 2,610 foot runway, noticed that the airspeed was slow. During the flair for landing, the pilot closed the throttle, and remembered rolling out on the grass next to the runway. While attempting to remain parallel to the runway, the pilot aborted the landing. The airplane accelerated after raising the flaps, and once airborne, the pilot recalled 'the airplane did not seem to climb, and the engine sounded correct for full power.' The airplane was seen in a nose high attitude, wings rocking as it impacted a 20 foot high embankment at the departure end of runway. No mechanical anomalies were found with the airframe or engine.
Probable cause
The pilot failed to maintain control of the airplane during landing rollout and his delayed decision to abort the landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98FA001
- Event ID
- 20001208X09033
- Case number
- IAD98FA001
- 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: 759d2a0b3dc36cb328967bc4e6748c0b9b5257736214d1058cdcd5ce9595d4f8; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:47:19.520Z.