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BFO92LA077 · Piper PA-34-200

25 May 1992 · WESTHAMPTON BCH, NY, United States

Dedalos Flight School Piper PA-34-200 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing

From Francis S Gabreski Airport (FOK) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
BFO92LA077
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-34-200

Aircraft type
Piper PA-34
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
N15109
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Francis S Gabreski Airport (FOK)To 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
Loss of control in flight
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(cfi) › Flare, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE STUDENT REALIZED HE WAS TOO HIGH DURING THE APPROACH, SO HE REDUCED POWER TO IDLE AND THEN HE USED FULL FLAPS WHILE ON SHORT FINAL. AFTERWARDS, THE INSTRUCTOR NOTICED THE AIRSPEED WAS 80 TO 85 MPH AND THE DESCENT RATE WAS ABOUT 1000 FEET PER MINUTE. ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTOR, HE EXPECTED THE STUDENT TO ARREST THE DESCENT RATE BY ADDING POWER, BUT INSTEAD THE STUDENT BEGAN AN 'EARLY ROUNDOUT.' THE INSTRUCTOR SAID HE TOOK CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AND ADVANCED THE THROTTLES; HOWEVER, THE AIRPLANE ABRUPTLY VEERED TO THE RIGHT BEFORE IT LANDED HARD ABOUT 100 FEET TO THE RIGHT OF THE RUNWAY, ROUGHLY 1000 FEET PAST THE THRESHOLD.

Probable cause

THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE LANDING FLARE WHICH RESULTED IN A HARD LANDING. CONTRIBUTING WAS THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record BFO92LA077
Event ID
20001211X14601
Case number
BFO92LA077
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: f2db821199e0a188745e3a56ff73fba68c3fcd29b3b2a10530603523ae34ec03; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:07:22.392Z.