CHI04LA052 · Piper PA-32RT-300
Piper PA-32RT-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Huntsville International Airport (HSV) to Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04LA052
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32RT-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
- N21992
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Huntsville, ALTo Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport (UMP), Fishers, IN
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Minimum descent altitude, continued below
- Pilot in command › Missed approach, 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 sustained substantial damage on impact with trees during a circling instrument approach. The pilot stated, "Descended to 1340 msl [mean sea level] and continued to 20 DME but did not clear clouds. Descended to 1100 msl and broke through at south end of runway. Remained clear of clouds and entered left, downwind circling approach to rwy [runway] 15 and proceeded with circling north entry. Clipped uppermost small branches of a tree with left wing in the middle of the turn, pulled aircraft higher for clearance and continued approx 1/4 to 1/2 mile to land on rwy 15 without further incident." Weather was: Wind 190 degrees at 12 knots, gusting to 17 knots; 3 statute miles visibility; present weather mist; sky condition overcast 300 feet above ground level; altimeter 29.87 inches of mercury. Remarks rain began at 1416 and rain ended at 1428. According to the published instrument approach procedure the circling minimum descent altitude was 1,340 feet msl and its weather minima was 1 statute mile visibility.
Probable cause
The pilot not maintaining altitude/clearance from the trees during the circling approach, his continued descent below minimum descent altitude, and the pilot not performing a missed approach. A factor was the trees the pilot impacted during the circling approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04LA052
- Event ID
- 20040107X00025
- Case number
- CHI04LA052
- 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: 30f0f1af0743a28a94f36f061ed119651f319d3c04f323ca185c5e539e4444b8; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:02:43.806Z.