FTW86FPA14 · Piper PA-32-300T
Piper PA-32-300T · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during landing
From Big Spring, TX to Saginaw, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW86FPA14
- 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-32-300T
- 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
- N82072
- Operator
- Elbert M. Long · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Big Spring, TXTo Saginaw, TX
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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 › Became lost/disoriented, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, not attained
- Pilot in command › Visual/aural perception
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
PILOT LONG DEPARTED BIG SPRING, TEXAS WITH TWO PASSENGERS VFR TO SAGINAW AIRPORT, SAGINAW, TEXAS. THE PILOT WAS FLYING TO MWL, VOR 065 RADIAL, DESCENDING TO PATTERN ALTITUDE AT SAGINAW AIRPORT. THE PILOT SAID HE HAD NOT BEEN TO THAT AIRPORT PREVIOUSLY. HEAVY SMOKE FROM A GRASS FIRE BURNOFF WAS OBSCURING A LARGE AREA TO THE NORTH AND EAST OF THE SAGINAW AIRPORT RUNWAY. PILOT LONG ENTERED THE SMOKE AREA, IDENTIFIED WHAT APPEARED TO BE A RUNWAY AND LANDED. THE AIRPLANE LANDED ON A STREET APPROXIMATELY 3/4 MILE EAST OF SAGINAW AIRPORT AND STRUCK A TWO-INCH PIPE WARNING SIGN RESULTING IN SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE TO THE RIGHT WING. THERE WAS NO FIRE AND NO INJURIES. THE ELT WAS NOT ACTIVATED. THE FAA INVESTIGATOR WAS AT THE TAKEOFF END OF THE SAGINAW AIRPORT AT THE TIME OF THIS ACCIDENT AND OBSERVED THE HEAVY GRASS FIRE SMOKE OBSCURING A LARGE AREA ACROSS THE APPROACH END TO SAGINAW AIRPORT AND THE ILS FINAL APPROACH COURSE TO MEACHAM FIELD. PILOT LONG IS BLIND IN HIS LEFT EYE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW86FPA14
- Event ID
- 20010110X00167
- Case number
- FTW86FPA14
- 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: eb3f231369b2ae570298506f0a508d330912696c839b08aa81357aad93aafef3; retrieved 2026-09-23T15:08:23.855Z.