CHI93LA142 · Piper PA-38-112
Phoenix Aviation Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI93LA142
- 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N9298T
- Operator
- Phoenix Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spirit of St Louis Airport (SUS), SAINT LOUIS, MOTo not recorded
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS ON A ROUND-ROBIN SOLO CROSS-COUNTRY FLIGHT FROM ST. LOUIS TO POTOSI, BONNE TERRE, AND RETURN. DURING THE RETURN TRIP TO ST. LOUIS THE PILOT BECAME MOTION-SICK AND DIVERTED TO THE NEAREST AIRPORT - FESTUS - FOR A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING. THE AIRPLANE LANDED 250 FT SHORT OF THE RUNWAY, ABOUT 40 FT BELOW THE CREST OF THE HILL WHERE THE RUNWAY IS LOCATED. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE HAD TAKEN AN OVER-THE-COUNTER MOTION-SICKNESS TABLET (50 MG DIMENHYDRINATE) PRIOR TO HIS DEPARTURE FROM ST. LOUIS; AN ELAPSED FLIGHT TIME OF ABOUT 2.1 HRS. THE LABEL OF THE MEDICATION STATED IT COULD CAUSE MARKED DROWSINESS, AND BORE A CAUTION AGAINST DRIVING OR OPERATING MACHINERY.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN A PROPER GLIDEPATH DURING APPROACH. FACTORS WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S MOTION SICKNESS AND THE EFFECT OF THE OVER-THE-COUNTER MEDICATION ON HIS PILOTING PERFORMANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI93LA142
- Event ID
- 20001211X12095
- Case number
- CHI93LA142
- 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: 10353341d286a696693d141d1d9581766b44feb52718243e94ca76a240ddfdab; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:59:00.564Z.