ATL89LA042 · Piper PA-31-350
James and Vaughn Leasing Piper PA-31-350 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL89LA042
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-31-350
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N27947
- Operator
- James and Vaughn Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS), Knoxville, TNTo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, continued
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PIC MADE TWO SDF APPROACHES. ON THE FIRST APPROACH HE HAD DIFFICULTY SEEING THE RWY LIGHTS. THE ACFT WAS ALIGNED LEFT OF RWY AND A MISSED APPROACH WAS MADE. ON THE SECOND APPROACH THE PIC SAID HE HAD DIFFICULTY PICKING UP ANY RWY LIGHTS. HE LANDED WITH THE NOSE GEAR & LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RWY. THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN WHEN THE PILOT THOUGHT THAT HE WAS STILL 15 FEET ABOVE RWY. RAIN OBSCURED THE WINDSHIELD. NO APPROACH LIGHTS WERE INSTALLED AT THE AIRPORT. THE RWY LIGHTS WOULD TRIP THE CB IF SET ABOVE 10% ILLUMINATION; PIC WAS AWARE OF THIS PROBLEM. THE AIRPORT WAS THE PIC'S HOME BASE AND NEXT NEAREST AIRPORT WAS 30 NM SW.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL89LA042
- Event ID
- 20001213X27204
- Case number
- ATL89LA042
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-11-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cc55b0bf9b30c2858d1cf9691899319b59c745e38e8e80abdae4d3b824f028e3; retrieved 2026-09-23T08:18:39.364Z.