NYC01LA173 · Piper PA28-140
Piper PA28-140 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Wellsville Municipal Airport - Tarantine Field (ELZ) to Schuyler, NY (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA173
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 PA28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N38390
- Operator
- Keith M. Killen · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Wellsville Municipal Airport - Tarantine Field (ELZ), Wellsville, NYTo Schuyler, NY (no airport)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was on approach to runway 10, an asphalt runway, that was about 2,400 feet long, and 30 feet wide. The pilot reported he experienced a "wind gust" while on final approach, which pushed the airplane to the left. The pilot maneuvered the airplane back toward the runway, and then attempted a go-around. A witness stated the airplane was approximately one-third of the way down the runway, when it was pushed "over the grass area." After the pilot maneuvered the airplane back over the runway, he heard the engine power increase and observed the airplane bank to the right. During the go-around, the airplane impacted trees that were located about 300 feet beyond the departure end of the runway. Examination of the airplane did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions. It was noted that the terrain sloped upward toward the trees located at the end of the runway. The pilot reported he was unfamiliar with the airport, and did not realized the ground sloped upward until he was closer to the trees. Winds reported at an airport about 16 miles west of the accident site were from 290 degrees at 10 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed go-around, which resulted in an in-flight collision with trees. A factor in this accident was the crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA173
- Event ID
- 20010719X01461
- Case number
- NYC01LA173
- 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: 07d1e9560b12d0e8725c9de42b24b5489471fc701b1f6d23adaaf5f9fc1121e6; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:54:33.745Z.