ATL87LA152 · Piper PA-28-140
Harnett Aviation Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87LA152
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N1696T
- Operator
- Harnett Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Dual student › Descent, excessive
- Dual student › Proper touchdown point, not obtained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Flare, not performed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT IMPACTED LEVEL GRASSY TERRAIN SHORT OF RWY 04, WHILE ON SHORT FINAL DURING A PRACTICE SHORT-FIELD LDG. THE CFI REPORTED THAT THE STUDENT PLT HAD STABILIZED THE ACFT ON THE APPCH AT 70 MPH; A HIGH SINK RATE WAS SUBSEQUENTLY ENCOUNTERED AS THE ACFT CROSSED OVER A STEEP DROP-OFF LOCATED ABOUT 100 FT BEFORE THE THRESHOLD. THE CFI ASSUMED CONTROL OF THE ACFT, LOWERED THE NOSE AND APPLIED PWR, BUT WAS UNABLE TO ARREST THE DESCENT. THE ACFT IMPACTED THE TERRAIN SLIGHTLY NOSE-DOWN. FULL FLAPS WERE IN USE AT THE TIME. THE CFI REPORTED THE WIND TO BE FROM 040 DEGREES AT 5 KTS WITH NO GUSTS. THE PIPER 140 OWNERS HANDBOOK LISTS 55 MPH AS THE POWER-OFF STALL SPEED, FOR A WINGS-LEVEL ACFT AT GROSS WEIGHT WITH FULL FLAPS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87LA152
- Event ID
- 20001213X30869
- Case number
- ATL87LA152
- 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: b69d981c94e97aeca589ff1e60da7270bf5bc26d6a6d00695a615046d1c06ac5; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:06:59.192Z.