FTW04FA038 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Cleveland Municipal Airport (6R3) to Livingston Municipal Airport (00R)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04FA038
- 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
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N98287
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland Municipal Airport (6R3), Cleveland, TXTo Livingston Municipal Airport (00R), Livingston, TX
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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); Wire, transmission
- 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
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, not performed
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 impacted trees, power lines, and terrain while on final approach at night in gusty and high wind conditions. A witness stated the airplane was "extremely low, and [the airplanes] never fly that low." The airplane traveled over his home, impacted a tree on his neighbor's property, and came to rest in the backyard of an adjacent property, approximately 2,600 feet short of runway 30. Another witness heard the impact, which he initially thought the wind had caused a tree or something to hit power lines. The 73-hour private pilot, who was reported to have accumulated a total of 15.2 hours in the accident airplane, was occupying the right seat. The 21-hour student pilot was occupying the left seat. A wind monitor located 1 mile from the accident site, recorded an average wind speed of 44 mph, a peak wind of 52 mph, and a wind direction of averaging 355 degrees. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to compensate for the wind conditions and maintain control of the airplane during the final approach. Contributing factors were the gusty and high wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04FA038
- Event ID
- 20031215X02037
- Case number
- FTW04FA038
- 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: 8d8adabeec0171a7f6abb6ad8565eba0431ad4a91dcb207dcbcd7e89a9f73de9; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:44:01.830Z.