FTW98LA415 · Piper PA-32-301T
Piper PA-32-301T · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From 4R2 · TX to San Angelo Regional Mathis Field (SJT)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA415
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32-301T
- 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
- N83894
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4R2 · TXTo San Angelo Regional Mathis Field (SJT), San Angelo, TX
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Object › Animal(s)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Austin, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the airplane impacted a deer during the landing roll at night. The airplane's propeller struck a deer, which subsequently struck the right main landing gear assembly. The pilot taxied the airplane to the ramp and he exited the airplane. The following morning the pilot assessed the damage and decided to fly the airplane around the pattern. Upon liftoff, the lower strut assembly from the right main landing gear, including the wheel, separated from the airplane. The pilot continued the flight and landed the airplane at another airport.
Probable cause
The collision with deer during the landing roll. Factors were the dark night light condition and the separation of the lower strut assembly from the right main landing gear, on the subsequent flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA415
- Event ID
- 20001211X11072
- Case number
- FTW98LA415
- 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 1998-09-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 253522b6e0b4158e4da903e4013bbdf4718ed0fe442a15bf402cefd114d46ec4; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:39:15.521Z.