CHI99LA161 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Goshen Municipal Airport (GSH) to MRJ
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA161
- 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-28-161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N2941Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goshen Municipal Airport (GSH), Goshen, INTo MRJ
- 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 on ground/water
- 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
- Aircraft performance, crosswind capability › Exceeded
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane impacted terrain during an aborted landing on runway 04 at Iowa County Airport (MRJ), Mineral Point, Wisconsin. The pilot stated that he had entered a left base for runway 04 and touched down at the runway threshold with the aircraft's flaps fully extended. He described the aircraft's attitude during its landing as having its left wing low with application of the right rudder. He further added that the wind gusted and raised the aircraft's left wing which was then followed by the aircraft departing the runway towards the right. The pilot stated that he added power to attempt an aborted landing. The airport manager stated that, at the time of the accident, the automatic weather observing system (AWOS) reported winds 25 knots gusting to 28-30 knots and a wind direction of 300-310 degrees. Upon touchdown the left wing of the accident aircraft appeared to lift the left wing and the aircraft veered to the right and struck a runway light with the right wing. The manager added, 'Pilot attempted a go around at this point but could not gain much altitude, plane veered to the east and went down in an open field'. The maximum demonstrated crosswind component for the PA-28-161 is 17 knots.
Probable cause
the inadequate planning and decision by the pilot and the exceeded crosswind capability of the airplane. Contributing factors were the crosswind and the gusts.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA161
- Event ID
- 20001212X18729
- Case number
- CHI99LA161
- 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: 90408b6eec3f183f1d9321dea0fad7c7e7cb9b2ec614bbe6484c0aa470d4c5d8; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:32:00.693Z.