NYC98LA160 · Piper PA-28RT-201 PA-28RT-20
Piper PA-28RT-201 PA-28RT-20 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From Hackettstown Airport (N05) to Sullivan County International Airport (MSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98LA160
- 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-28RT-201 PA-28RT-20
- 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
- N305RC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hackettstown Airport (N05)To Sullivan County International Airport (MSV), Monticello, NY
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Performance data, not used
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hackettstown, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot landed at the airport with a passenger, and picked up two additional passengers. The pilot estimated the airplane's takeoff weight to be 2,710 pounds. The pilot taxied onto Runway 23, released the brakes at 1,500 to 1,700 RPM, and rotated the airplane at 61 to 62 knots IAS. After rotation, about 30 feet above the ground, the pilot felt the airplane would not clear the trees at the departure end of the runway. The stall horn sounded, and he elected to abort the takeoff. The airplane touched down left of the runway and entered a line of trees. According to performance charts, a ground run of about 1,700 feet and a clear distance of approximately 2,200 feet was required to clear a 50 foot obstacle. The calculations were based on obtaining 2,700 RPM before brake release, and rotating the airplane at approximately 70 knots IAS.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to use the airplane's takeoff performance data, and his failure to obtain the proper climb airspeed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98LA160
- Event ID
- 20001211X10937
- Case number
- NYC98LA160
- 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: 5c30eea13dc9d0d6736bc01acaed3ebb2f4dfbb22022897af25f7f80f823352e; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:22:13.634Z.