CHI83LA168 · Piper PA-28-181
Hobby Flite Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: hard landing
From Willow Run Airport (YIP) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI83LA168
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N8578C
- Operator
- Hobby Flite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Willow Run Airport (YIP), Ypsilanti, MITo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE EXECUTED A GO-AROUND ON THE FIRST LANDING ATTEMPT BECAUSE OF A STRONG CROSSWIND AND HIGH AIRSPEED. ON THE SECOND APPROACH, HE EXECUTED A GO-AROUND FROM THE FLARE BECAUSE OF A 'STRONG UPDRAFT'. THE PILOT STATEDTHAT DURING THE GO-AROUND, SOMETHING BLACK COVERED THE RIGHT SIDE OF WINDSHIELD. HE STATED THAT HE RESPONDED BY MOVING HIS RIGHT ARM UP AND TURNING THE AIRCRAFT TO THE LEFT. THE LEFT WING STRUCK TREES ABOUT 15 GAL AGL AND ABOUT 100 FEET TOTHE EAST OF THE RUNWAY MIDPOINT. A WITNESS STATED THAT ON THE SECOND LANDING, THE AIRCRAFT BOUNCED SEVERAL TIMES FOLLOWED BY THE LEFT WING RAISING. THE LANDING WAS ON RUNWAY 18. THE WIND WAS FROM 265 DEG AT 17 KTS GUSTING TO 20 KTS. REPORTEDLY, THE AIRPORT HAD TWO TURF RUNWAYS (4/22 AND 10/28).
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI83LA168
- Event ID
- 20001214X42626
- Case number
- CHI83LA168
- 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: 1bf77e56558aff1f87fa00751550967548bf6b36d69f4a563f220206c93a7ee1; retrieved 2026-09-23T22:24:30.444Z.