BFO91LA022 · Piper PA-32R
Piper PA-32R · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO91LA022
- 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-32R
- 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
- N6945J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Easton Airport / Newnam Field (ESN), Easton, MDTo 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 91F: Special Flt Ops.
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT REPORTED THAT BECAUSE OF THE WIND CONDITION, 15 KTS GUST TO 20 KTS, HE USED AN APCH SPEED OF ABOUT 98 TO 102 MPH, INSTEAD OF 87 MPH WHICH HE NORMALLY USES. HE ALSO USED FULL FLAPS. DURING THE APCH THE PLT SIDESLIPPED THE ACFT TO COMPENSATE FOR THE X-WIND. ACCORDING TO THE PLT, THERE WAS A 15 TO 20 FT HIGH DIRTBANK SHORT OF THE RWY, AND WHEN HE FLEW OVER IT, THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED A DOWNDRAFT. THE PLT REPORTED THE ACFT ABRUPTLY LOST 30 FT OF ALTITUDE AND AS HE TRIED TO RECOVER, THE R MAIN GEAR STRUCK THE DIRTBANK, SEPARATING THE GEAR FROM THE ACFT. THE ACFT LANDED ON THE RWY AND SLID TO A STOP.
Probable cause
PILOT FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ALTITUDE CLEARANCE ABOVE AN OBSTACLE AFTER THE AIRCRAFT ENCOUNTERED A DOWNDRAFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO91LA022
- Event ID
- 20001212X24729
- Case number
- BFO91LA022
- 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: 43c55b1ed887439faea64f096c3fb23c8a848cc2143195748ae18ff71705c892; retrieved 2026-09-23T04:59:04.312Z.