FTW85FA140 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From 4FA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85FA140
- 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
- 1 · 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-28-180
- 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
- N7012W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4FATo 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 base
- 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 collision with object
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Proper altitude, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AN ASSOCIATE OF THE PLT/OWNER STATED THAT HE HAD DEPARTED AT ABOUT 2030 CST TO GET SOME NIGHT PRACTICE PRIOR TO GETTING A DAY VFR RESTRICTION REMOVED FROM HIS PVT LICENSE. REPORTEDLY, THE OWNER/PLT & AN INSTRUCTOR (CFI) WERE INTENDING TO FLY TOGETHER & PRACTICE TOUCH-&-GO LANDINGS. THERE WERE NO KNOWN WITNESSES TO THE ACCIDENT. THE ACFT WAS FOUND ABOUT 4 HRS AFTER IT HAD CRASHED. AN EXAM OF THE CRASH SITE REVEALED THE ACFT HAD COLLIDED WITH 70 FT TREES NEAR THE APCH END OF RWY 35. IMPACT OCCURRED IN A SLIGHT RIGHT BANK & SLIGHT NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE, AS IF THE ACFT WAS ON A BASE TO FINAL TURN, BUT TOO CLOSE IN & TOO LOW. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND DURING THE INVESTIGATION. THE CFI, WHO WAS ACTING AS A SAFETY PLT, RECEIVED SERIOUS INJURIES & HAD NO MEMORY OF WHAT OCCURRED DURING THE FLT. THERE WERE TALL TREES NEAR THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE RWY WHICH MAY HAVE OBSCURED THE RWY LIGHTS WHEN VIEWED FROM THE EAST OR SOUTHEAST.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85FA140
- Event ID
- 20001214X35901
- Case number
- FTW85FA140
- 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 1985-03-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c6fe61a7c1cc2ee081cf60678111f6fa467a7952329fba1844b853c0df7b4fc5; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:07:18.564Z.