IAD04FA017 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Youngstown Elser Metro Airport (4G4) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD04FA017
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5369P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Youngstown Elser Metro Airport (4G4), North Lima, OHTo not recorded
- 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
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, 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 pilot was practicing landings to runway 28. The sun had set, but there was still residual light to the west. The airplane took off, completed a circuit at a low altitude, and just barely cleared trees and wires on the final approach to a landing. As the pilot taxied the airplane back to the approach end of the runway, a witness saw that the cockpit instrument lights were on. The airplane took off again, and flew another circuit at low altitude, then impacted trees as it was turning onto the final approach leg. One area resident heard engine "backfires," while others thought the engine "just didn't sound right," and had an "odd noise," but didn't hear any backfires. Two airline transport pilots, who were watching the airplane from the airport ramp, did not note any engine problems, and an examination of the airplane after the accident also did not reveal any airframe or engine anomalies. The runway had a precision approach path indicator (PAPI), described by one of the airline transport pilots as "brilliant red." The pilot had an eye examination about 6 months prior to the accident. On a questionnaire, he stated "yes" to whether bright lights bothered him, and "yes" to having trouble with night vision.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a safe altitude clearance from trees. Factors included the night lighting conditions and the pilot's diminished night vision capability.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD04FA017
- Event ID
- 20040429X00531
- Case number
- IAD04FA017
- 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 2004-04-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 53fc343ee83adb7804b2b5959ebd2dd7150a5a7342200bcaa1a1e66b125c9467; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:30:03.713Z.