CHI03LA011 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Paul C. Miller-Sparta Airport (8D4) to Canton-Plymouth-Mettetal Airport (1D2)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA011
- 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-32-300
- 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
- N56655
- Operator
- David D. Grear · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Paul C. Miller-Sparta Airport (8D4), Sparta, MITo Canton-Plymouth-Mettetal Airport (1D2), Plymouth, MI
- 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
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Inoperative
- Pilot in command › Directional 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 received substantial damage when it struck a visual approach slope indicator light after a loss of control during landing. A fire subsequently erupted and was extinguished by the pilot and airport personnel. The pilot reported that during the landing his right brake was not working. He stated that he attempted to stop using the left brake and compensating with rudder. The aircraft veered to the right, departed the runway, and struck a visual approach slope indicator light. The pilot stated he had maintenance performed on the brakes twice in the previous 2 months, at which time the mechanic bled the lines and added fluid. He stated that he had flown the airplane the day before with no problems. Subsequent to the accident, a seal in the brake master cylinder was found defective.
Probable cause
The pilot not maintaining directional control during landing and the inoperative right main landing gear brake. Contributing factors were the failed brake master cylinder seal, resulting in a hydraulic leak, the inadequate preflight by the pilot, the fuel fire, and the pilot intentionally operating the airplane with a known brake system problem.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA011
- Event ID
- 20021030X05409
- Case number
- CHI03LA011
- 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, 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: 2c5ac6cf8c66b7d7bc226c6e89aa65b86deb531178541b9153f1e56343907e7e; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:02:25.988Z.