ATL93LA050 · Piper PA-32R-301
High Cotton Piper PA-32R-301 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Fairfield County Airport (FDW) to Kinston Regional Jetport At Stallings Field (ISO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93LA050
- 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-32R-301
- 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
- N8409A
- Operator
- High Cotton
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairfield County Airport (FDW), Winnsboro, SCTo Kinston Regional Jetport At Stallings Field (ISO), Kinston, NC
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not identified
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT REPORTED THAT ABOUT 40 MILES FROM HIS DESTINATION, THE AIRPLANE'S LIGHTS BLINKED ON AND OFF DUE TO A SHORT IN THE SYSTEM. HE ELECTED TO LAND AT GOLDSBORO, AWARE THAT THE RUNWAY LIGHTS WERE INOPERATIVE. THE AIRPLANE LANDED ABOUT 20 FT LEFT OF THE RUNWAY, IN THE GRASS, AND COLLIDED WITH A PIECE OF CULTIVATING EQUIPMENT. DURING EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE, THE LANDING LIGHT WAS OPERATED SEVERAL TIMES & FUNCTIONED NORMALLY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S IMPROPER DECISION IN ATTEMPTING A NIGHT LANDING AT AN AIRPORT WITHOUT OPERATING RUNWAY LIGHTS WHICH RESULTED IN A TOUCHDOWN OFF THE RUNWAY. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: AN AIRPLANE LIGHTING MALFUNCTION FOR AN UNDETERMINED REASON(S) AND THE DARK NIGHT LIGHT CONDITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93LA050
- Event ID
- 20001211X11649
- Case number
- ATL93LA050
- 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: 0adf85ba4834a9de3fcf44bb79b02f37d93ae9b2bca37e51226773082a5c9a43; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:23:30.583Z.