NYC00FA247 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Stoltzfus Airfield (OH22) to Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00FA247
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N2102X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stoltzfus Airfield (OH22)To Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL), Cleveland, 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
- Initial climb
- 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; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had arrived at the departure airport the previous day. The pilot requested that the airplane be fueled, and received 45.2 gallons of fuel. The day of the accident, the pilot, four passengers, and about 100 pounds of cargo were loaded into the airplane. The airplane was then taxied to the runway and departed to the north. As the airplane proceeded down the runway, about 800 feet from the departure end, the airplane ascended into the air and settled back down on the runway. The airplane continued down the runway, bounced a second time and became airborne again. Once the airplane was in the air, a stall-warning light and stall-warning buzzer activated. Seconds later the stall warnings went out. The pilot-passenger in the right seat then stated out loud, "oh no," and the airplane struck power lines. The pilot passenger then stated "looks like we are going to hit the house," and the airplane hit a 20-foot high flagpole at the 8-foot level. The airplane continued into a wooded area before coming to rest and consumed by a post crash fire. The weather reported from a nearby airport, at 0553, were winds from 340 degrees at 3 knots, 1/4 statute mile visibility with fog, broken cloud layer at 100 feet, overcast clouds at 600 feet. The estimated weight of the airplane at the time of the accident was calculated to be approximately 3,685 pounds. The published maximum gross weight for the airplane was 3,400 pounds. Review of the airplane's performance data revealed that the normal takeoff roll, at 3,400 pounds, was about 1,300 feet. The rate of climb, at 3,400 pounds, was about 930 feet per minute.
Probable cause
The pilot's premature liftoff and failure to attain a proper climb rate. Factors related to the accident were the over-gross weight conditions, and the low cloud ceilings.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00FA247
- Event ID
- 20001212X22047
- Case number
- NYC00FA247
- 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: 3cd5086ac45e8782ec81118409d305a19dedadbaba797b6052873e74327775d1; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:53:42.283Z.