IAD00LA073 · Aviat A-1
Aviat A-1 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From McVille Airport (P37) to Stoltzfus Airfield (OH22)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00LA073
- 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
Aviat A-1
- Aircraft type
- Aviat A-1
- 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
- N79PS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McVille Airport (P37), Freeport, PATo Stoltzfus Airfield (OH22)
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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
- Object › Wire, transmission
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Kidron, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that he observed landing and departing traffic from the traffic pattern, and noticed an airplane landing on the grass west of the runway. He determined the displaced threshold was due to tall trees, and opted for an approach and landing to the grass left (west) of the treeline and the runway. The pilot said that after he turned final and maneuvered left of the trees, he saw the marker balls on the wires. He elected to fly under the marked wires on the north side of the road and struck unmarked wires on the south side. He said: "I was able to go under the wires that were marked without any contact but as I did that, I caught a wire that was unmarked on the south side of the road, which caused the airplane to pitch down and hit the ground." The pilot reported there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane. Runway 36 was 3,400 feet long with a displaced threshold. A paved road oriented East/West ran perpendicular to the runway at the approach end of Runway 36. A set of high tension power lines with orange marker balls displayed, ran along the North side of the roadway.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain a proper glide path and proper visual lookout that resulted in collision with wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00LA073
- Event ID
- 20001212X21744
- Case number
- IAD00LA073
- 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: 9936b28be8f778025b1803105a84fd62bf9a08837a558af84c308028822a9cc3; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:30:54.683Z.