MIA94LA041 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: hard landing
From Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport (SPA) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94LA041
- 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-32-300
- 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
- N2872D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport (SPA), Spartanburg, SCTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Recovery from bounced landing, not performed
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT DEVIATED DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER AND WHILE IN THE TRAFFIC PATTERN FOR LANDING ON RUNWAY 26 AT THE ALTERNATE AIRPORT, THE PILOT ADVISED HE HAD ATIS INFORMATION 'INDIA.' THE WINDS WERE FROM 280 DEGREES AT 11 KNOTS WITH GUSTS TO 18 KNOTS. THE FLIGHT WAS CLEARED TO LAND AND THE PILOT WAS ADVISED BY THE CONTROLLER THAT THE WIND WAS FROM 290 DEGREES AT 12 KNOTS. THE PILOT ACKNOWLEDGED THIS AND STATED THAT JUST BEFORE TOUCHDOWN, THE AIRSPEED DECREASED 10 KNOTS. THE AIRPLANE THEN LANDED HARD ON THE NOSE LANDING GEAR AND BEGAN TO PORPOISE. THE PILOT DID NOT APPLY POWER TO GO-AROUND AND THE NOSE LANDING GEAR COLLAPSED ON THE SECOND TOUCHDOWN.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND TO APPLY POWER AFTER THE AIRSPEED DECREASE JUST BEFORE TOUCHDOWN AND ALSO FAILURE TO RECOVER FROM THE BOUNCED LANDING. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE IN-FLIGHT ENCOUNTER WITH WIND GUSTS WHILE ON APPROACH TO LAND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94LA041
- Event ID
- 20001211X13897
- Case number
- MIA94LA041
- 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: 3ebd49043f679a55b1a1e9f4acd1490e9055c08e03d61cc04407251cb5a3428d; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:25:01.809Z.