ATL83FIA03 · Piper PA-32-300
Dulles Aviation Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From WDL · WATERVILLE, MA to W28 · FT. WASHINGTON, MD
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83FIA03
- 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-32-300 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N2203U
- Operator
- Dulles Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From WDL · WATERVILLE, MATo W28 · FT. WASHINGTON, MD
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Control interference, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING ARRIVAL, THE ACFT WAS LANDED ON RWY 6 ON A DARK NIGHT. THE PLT STATED THAT THE AIRSPEED INDICATED 85 KTS AS THE ACFT WAS OVER THE RWY NUMBERS, AND AFTER A NORMAL LANDING, HE APPLIED BOTH BRAKES. HE REPORTED THAT AS SOON AS HE APPLIED BRAKES, THE ACFT BEGAN A RIGHT TURN AS IF THE BRAKES LOCKED. HE RELEASED THE BRAKES & APPLIED LEFT BRAKE & RUDDER, BUT THERE WAS NO RESPONSE. THE ACFT CONTINUED SKIDDING SIDEWAYS, WENT OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RWY & COLLIDED WITH 2 PARKED ACFT; A PIPER PA-28, N4842L & A GRUMMAN AMERICAN AA-5, N5462L. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE SKID MARKS BEGAN APRX 1900 FT FROM THE APCH END OF THE 2580 FT RWY. MEASUREMENTS OF 3 SKID MARKS ON THE RWY REVEALED THAT THE PLANE SKIDDED 272 FT WHILE ANGLED UP TO 35 TO 40 DEG FROM THE RWY HEADING. AFTER DEPARTING THE RWY, THE PLANE SKIDDED ANOTHER 262 FT BEFORE STRIKING THE OTHER 2 ACFT. THE PASSENGER (A STUDENT PLT) IN THE COPILOT'S SEAT ADMITTED HE APPLIED THE BRAKES ON HIS SIDE WHEN HE SAW THAT THE ACFT WAS DEPARTING THE RWY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83FIA03
- Event ID
- 20001214X43590
- Case number
- ATL83FIA03
- 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 1983-07-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d8b7a1ac3bd4bfaf90818d1631dd1507cbc718d827b55bc0d1eeec615a2f8abc; retrieved 2026-09-22T02:35:00.779Z.