CHI02LA014 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Delaware County Johnson Field (MIE) to Smith Field (SMD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA014
- 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 PA-28-180
- 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
- N4879L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delaware County Johnson Field (MIE), Muncie, INTo Smith Field (SMD), Fort Wayne, IN
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was destroyed when it impacted trees while attempting a go-around. The pilot reported that while on short final for landing, a gust of wind blew the airplane off the runway centerline. He said that he, "...immediately executed a go-around in which the plane banked sharply right, which [he] could not counter...." In a separate report, the pilot said that he was landing on runway 23 when the airplane banked sharply to the right. He said that he, "...attempted a go-around while trying to level the wings with no avail and crashed into trees north-east of the airport." The pilot listed no mechanical malfunction in his reports of the accident. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no anomalies that could be associated with a pre-impact condition. A weather report for a recording station located about 10 nautical miles south of the accident site listed the wind at 1254 as 240 degrees magnetic at 11 knots. No wind gusts were recorded for that report.
Probable cause
The pilot not maintaining control of the airplane during an attempted go-around. A factor was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA014
- Event ID
- 20011102X02184
- Case number
- CHI02LA014
- 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: 1c6978502e3065d1cd621a667bb4a92c9d5ae8abd20ca86da77f57f5744e70b5; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:45:25.808Z.