CHI82DA050 · Piper PA-31-310
Piper PA-31-310 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From CPS · Paducah, KY to East Saint Louis, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI82DA050
- 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
- 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-31-310
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-31
- 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
- N7511L
- Operator
- Ira D. Farrington · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CPS · Paducah, KYTo East Saint Louis, IL
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCREW DID NOT KEY THE APPROACH LIGHTS ON DURING THE FIRST ILS APPROACH AT NIGHT. THEREFORE, A MISSED APPROACH WAS MADE. ON THE SECOND APPROACH, THE LEAD-IN LIGHTS WERE VISIBLE FROM OVER ONE MILE. HOWEVER, THE VISIBILITY WAS MUCH WORSE AT TOUCHDOWN, WHICH WAS ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RUNWAY. THE LEFT MAIN GEAR ENCOUNTERED SNOW AT THE EDGE OF THE RUNWAY AND THE AIRCRAFT SWERVED LEFT INTO A SNOWBANK. THE SNOWBANKS WERE ABOUT 4 FEET HIGH AND WERE LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 10 FEET OUTSIDE OF THE RUNWAY LIGHTS. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THERE WERE NO NOTAMS CONCERNING THE SNOWBANKS. THE 2221 CST WEATHER OBSERVATION AT ST. LOUIS WAS TAKEN ABOUT 15 MILES AWAY AND INDICATED VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS. HOWEVER, THE PILOT REPORTED THE VISIBILITY WAS VARIABLE BETWEEN 1/2 AND 3 MILES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI82DA050
- Event ID
- 20020917X01800
- Case number
- CHI82DA050
- 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 1982-02-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cd271b454b27c372ffff94ca448c92c3b134f6b2778d6d96e678f8f2afd15114; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:12:22.172Z.