CHI89LA074 · Piper PA-38-112
Great Northern Aircraft Sales Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while taxiing
From Griffith-Merrillville Airport (05C) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI89LA074
- 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N9223T
- Operator
- Great Northern Aircraft Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Griffith-Merrillville Airport (05C), Griffith, INTo 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
UPON HIS RETURN FROM THE PRACTICE AREA, THE STUDENT PILOT ATTEMPTED TO PERFORM A FULL STOP LANDING ON RUNWAY 8 AT GRIFFITH, INDIANA. THE WIND WAS REPORTED TO BE 030 DEGREES AT 10 KNOTS BY A WEATHER OBSERVATION FACILITY LOCATED 6 NM NORTH OF THE ACCIDENT AIRPORT. ON THE FIRST TWO ATTEMPTS, THE STUDENT PILOT ELECTED TO GO-AROUND BECAUSE HE WAS DRIFTING TO THE RIGHT OF THE RUNWAY. ON THE THIRD ATTEMPT TO LAND, THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE WAS USING PROPER CROSSWIND CORRECTIONS, AND FELT THE AIRCRAFT WAS ALIGNED WITH THE RUNWAY. WHEN THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHED DOWN IT VEERED OFF THE RUNWAY INTO A SANDY AREA, WHERE IT NOSED OVER.
Probable cause
THE STUDENT PILOT'S FAILURE TO COMPENSATE FOR THE CROSSWIND CONDITION AND MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL DURING THE LANDING. THE AIRPLANE DEPARTED THE RUNWAY AND NOSED OVER IN SOFT TERRAIN. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE STUDENT'S LACK OF RECENT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI89LA074
- Event ID
- 20001213X28064
- Case number
- CHI89LA074
- 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: 89e867c312300b01deb21bd590e8f7ed9cc2fa16f19ab8e67c295f5c82bf59e6; retrieved 2026-09-23T07:42:15.511Z.