CHI04LA008 · Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-D
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-D · Accident: undershoot on approach
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to Harvard, IL (private airstrip)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA008
- 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
Ercoupe (Eng & Research Corp.) 415-D
- Aircraft type
- Ercoupe (eng Research 415
- 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
- N3848H
- Operator
- Thomas N. Chapman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo Harvard, IL (private airstrip)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
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 contacted a corn crop while attempting to land on an unlit grass airstrip at night. The pilot stated that he was making a low approach over the unlit airstrip to determine if he was able to see it well enough to land. He stated that if he was unable to see well enough, he had planned to fly to a nearby airport. He stated the field elevation at the airstrip is 1,000 feet and he set his altimeter after listening to the Automated Terminal Information Service (ATIS) of a airport which was approximately 28 statue miles away. He stated that once on final approach, he was able to see the lights from the open hangar at the far end of the airstrip. He reported he descended in the general direction of the runway threshold using a flashlight in the cockpit to view the altimeter. The pilot reported he was next aware of the sound of corn stalks hitting the airplane. The airplane then impacted the ground and turned to the right with the nose gear collapsing. The airplane contacted the corn stalks approximately two-tenths of a mile from the end of the runway. The pilot reported, "I would say I failed to monitor the rate of sink for the fly-by/approach and the situation was due to pilot error."
Probable cause
The pilot misjudged his altitude and distance from the approach end of the airstrip, along with his decision to land at an unlit airstrip at night. Factors involved in the accident were the the night lighting conditions, the unlit airstrip, and the corn crop which the airplane contacted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA008
- Event ID
- 20031015X01728
- Case number
- CHI04LA008
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-10-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9c092d3c1de9e3e1560cbca2c25677a9209076e59953a9155f1babf973ecfec3; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:22:08.228Z.