FTW04LA123 · Diamond Aircraft Industries DA-40
Diamond Aircraft Industries DA-40 and Giles 202 · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04LA123
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Diamond Aircraft Industries DA-40
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-40
- 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
- N89SE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU), Georgetown, TXTo 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Giles 202
- Aircraft type
- Giles 202
- 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
- N202XS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Georgetown Executive Airport at Johnny Gantt Field (GTU), Georgetown, TXTo 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
- Midair collision
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on final approach to landing at an uncontrolled airport, the low-wing Diamond DA-40 collided with the low-wing Giles 202 at an altitude of approximately 50 feet agl. The 16,000-hour pilot of the DA-40 reported that he entered announced his intentions for landing on the common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) and reported upon entering a base leg for the runway, one-mile final, and 1/2-mile final. The 977-hour pilot of the Giles 202 reported that he announced inbound to the airport, on downwind, and the base to short final legs on the CTAF. Witnesses located at the airport reported observing the Giles 202 on a very high short left base, with a "relatively high sink rate" over taking the DA-40 quickly." One witness recalled hearing a radio transmission regarding "someone on short final," but was unsure which aircraft made the radio call. A witness taxing at the airport stated he did not hear any radio transmissions on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) 123.0 mhz. Examination of both aircraft's radios revealed the radios were both set to the CTAF at the time of inspection by an Federal Aviation Administration inspector.
Probable cause
The failure of both pilot's to maintain an adequate visual lookout, which resulted in a midair collision between the two airplanes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04LA123
- Event ID
- 20040513X00596
- Case number
- FTW04LA123
- 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: 6ba5c0df2659a85cc2bd125369dab982ea3d060bb515db9672d27dfc2fd8b275; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:17:39.358Z.