CHI84LA337 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: uncontrolled altitude deviation on approach
From Fleming Mason Airport (FGX) to GEOQ · Georgetown, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI84LA337
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N3573C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fleming Mason Airport (FGX), Flemingsburg, KYTo GEOQ · Georgetown, OH
- 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
- Uncontrolled altitude deviation
- 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
- Passenger › Elevator, inadvertent use
- Pilot in command › Inattentive
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED WHEN THE PILOT WAS FLYING LOW ON A FLY-BY FOR PHOTOGRAPHS. ADJUSTING HER SEAT, THE PASSENGER HIT THE CONTROL YOKE, THE AIRCRAFT PITCHED DOWN AND COLLIDED WITH A TREE. THE PILOT RECOVERED CONTROL AND COMPLETED A SAFE LANDING AT AN AIRPORT 15 MILES AWAY. THE OUTBOARD 4 FEET OF THE LEFT WING HAD BEEN TORN OFF.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI84LA337
- Event ID
- 20001214X40631
- Case number
- CHI84LA337
- 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: 8be3f9b94e69327f67504eb964ba6358ea99f0812eb5006df38a982be68a7774; retrieved 2026-09-23T19:53:19.534Z.