IAD03FA070 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Heritage Field (PTW) to Seamans Field (9N3)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD03FA070
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N6373C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Heritage Field (PTW), Pottstown, PATo Seamans Field (9N3), Factoryville, PA
- 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 · circling (IFR)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › IFR procedure, improper
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, 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 instrument rated pilot was cleared by air traffic control to execute the published VOR instrument approach procedure into his destination airport. Witnesses stated that the weather was foggy with forward visibility ranging from 0 to 100 feet. The witnesses heard the airplane fly over the airport with a low engine rpm, followed by an increase in rpm and the sound of trees breaking. The airplane came to rest about 100 yards northwest of runway 4/22 in heavily wooded terrain. The published inbound course for the VOR approach was 309 degrees, and the minimum descent altitude (MDA) utilizing Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania's, altimeter setting was 1,860 feet msl. The published weather minimums included a 600-foot ceiling and a 1-mile visibility. A hand held global position system (GPS) receiver was located near the main wreckage. Information downloaded from the receiver revealed that the entire flight was recorded. The GPS began recording at 0716:31 and ended at 0749:44. A review of the last 1 minute and 3 seconds of recorded data revealed that the airplane was headed 299 degrees, then initiated a turn to a heading of 017 degrees as it flew over the runway. While descending from an altitude of 2,000 feet to 1,268 feet mean sea level, before the data ended. Two instrument approach plates (one was Jeppesen and the other N.O.S) for the VOR or GPS-A instrument approach were found in the airplane wreckage. On the backside of the Jeppensen approach plate was an airport diagram of the airport. A review of the diagram revealed the trees located along the northwestern boundary of the airport were at an elevation of 1,287 feet. The published airport elevation was 1,209 feet msl.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper in-flight decision to descend below the published minimum descent altitude while executing a non-precision approach in instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in collision with trees. A factor was the fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD03FA070
- Event ID
- 20030818X01348
- Case number
- IAD03FA070
- 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: d2bcbd1b9be38689c5e6a40835e92b24f8bd56c306d859f7e75a6d9c0f0294b9; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:00:20.688Z.