NYC87LA201 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Latrobe, PA to William T. Piper Memorial Airport (LHV)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87LA201
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N33576
- Operator
- Rhett A. Grotzinger · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Latrobe, PATo William T. Piper Memorial Airport (LHV), Lock Haven, PA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Preflight briefing service, disregarded
- Weather condition › Clouds
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT ENCOUNTERED POOR VISIBILITY WHILE AT CRUISE ALTITUDE. THE PILOT DECIDED NOT TO CONTINUE FLIGHT AND LANDED ON A FOOTBALL FIELD. DURING ROLL OUT, THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR FELL INTO A DRAIN HOLE TO THE SIDE OF THE FIELD CAUSING THE AIRCRAFT TO TURN RIGHT ABOUT 45 DEGREES. THE PLANE CONTINUED TO ROLL AND COLLIDED WITH THE BLEACHERS. THE PILOT HAD RECEIVED A WEATHER BRIEFING DURING WHICH HE WAS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF THUNDERSTORMS. THE PILOT CONTINUED UNTIL A 180 DEGREE TURN WAS NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO REMOVE HIM FROM DETERIORATING WEATHER CONDITIONS. THE PLT DID NOT FILE AN ACC REPORT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87LA201
- Event ID
- 20001213X31639
- Case number
- NYC87LA201
- 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 1987-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 32c041f61eb5752d9fbd4b201781dae11450e324c4d805ea615d36a2f1079bae; retrieved 2026-09-23T12:51:47.472Z.