Grand Aire Express Piper PA-60 accident
Piper PA-60 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) to Columbus Municipal Airport (BAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA197
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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-60
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-60
- 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
- N158GA
- Operator
- Grand Aire Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, OHTo Columbus Municipal Airport (BAK), Columbus, 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · IFR missed approach
- 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
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and fire after it impacted the intersection of runway 23 and 32 while attempting a missed-approach. The pilot's crew day started at 1300 and the 14 hour duty limit was 0300 the following morning. The second leg of the flight was delayed 1 hour and 36 minutes due to a freight delay. The operator reported the pilot exceeded his 14 hour crew day by 45 minutes as a result of the freight delay. The flight was cleared for the runway 23 ILS instrument approach. A witness, who was monitoring the Unicom radio frequency, reported that he heard clicking sounds on the Unicom frequency (to bring up the runway light intensity), but the pilot did not make any radio transmissions. The witness reported the ground fog was very thick. Two witnesses reported they heard the airplane's engines. They then heard the engines go to "full power," and then they heard the airplane impact the ground. They saw an initial flash, but could not see the airplane on fire from 2,500 feet away. FAR 135.213 requires that, "Weather observations made and furnished to pilots to conduct IFR operations at an airport must be made at the airport where those IFR operations are conducted." The destination did not have authorized weather reporting, and the operator's Operating Specifications did not list an alternate weather reporting source. At 0253, the observed weather 20 miles to the north, indicated the following: winds 190 at 4 knots, 1/4 statute mile visibility, fog, indefinite ceilings 100 feet, temperature 22 degrees C, dew point 22 degrees C, altimeter 30.00. From the initial point of impact (POI), the wreckage path continued for about 210 feet on a heading of about 180 degrees. The outboard section of the left wing outboard of the nacelle was found on runway 32, about 85 feet from the POI. Separated, unburned, portions of the left aileron and left flap were also found on the runway. The remaining pieces of the left wing were located with the main wreckage. The right wing was located with the main wreckage and the entire span of the right wing from the wing root to the wingtip exhibited continuity. The inspection of the airplane revealed no preexisting anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a missed approach. Additional factors included the operator's inadequate oversight, the pilot's improper in-flight decision, conditions conducive to pilot fatigue, fog, and night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA197
- Event ID
- 20020722X01179
- Case number
- CHI02FA197
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, coordinates. 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: 94570bc5dc4bb9b52394ec1a11d5d9dccb8c3897580eb64875ccb86b458f6231; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:04:31.417Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N158GA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, GXPA.