NYC00LA081 · Piper PA-28-236
Piper PA-28-236 and Cessna 172M · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA081
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Piper PA-28-236
- 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
- N8264G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lorain County Regional Airport (LPR), Elyria, OHTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N1742V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From SKY · Sandusky, OHTo Galion Municipal Airport (GQQ), Galion, OH
- 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 · climb to 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
- Pilot of other aircraft › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A low wing Piper was in level flight at 3,700 feet, heading in a northerly direction. A high wing Cessna was climbing through 3,300 feet for a final cruise altitude of 3,500 feet. The pilot of the Piper felt a bump and the windshield broke. Assuming that he had hit a bird, the pilot returned to LPR and landed uneventfully. The pilot of the Cessna noticed a vertical fin just slightly to the right of the airplane. The Cessna impacted the Piper, and both airplanes landed uneventfully at different airports. Examination of the Piper revealed a black rubber streak that on the top of the fuselage, about 5 degrees right of centerline, and extended reward about 4 feet. The vertical stabilizer and rudder were damaged from the top rudder hinge upward. Examination of the Cessna revealed a gash in the fuselage that extended from aft of the firewall to where the wing strut met the fuselage. Pieces of metal and wires were found embedded in the gash. The right hand door was missing from the airplane. A gash and white paint transfer was observed on the nose wheel tire. Inside the cabin area of the airplane was the rudder counter weight from the Piper.
Probable cause
The inadequate visual lookout by the pilots of both airplanes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA081
- Event ID
- 20001212X20559
- Case number
- NYC00LA081
- 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: 191326bab1f36af6f96a0dadbf238f51499bf07d1f6684d76f671fef2cd589dd; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:12:41.164Z.