CHI04CA250 · Piper PA-32-301
Piper PA-32-301 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR) to Crivitz Municipal Airport (3D1)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA250
- 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
Piper PA-32-301
- 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
- N8173J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR), Grand Rapids, MITo Crivitz Municipal Airport (3D1), Crivitz, WI
- 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
- Landing · aborted
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A rental airplane received substantial damage on impact with a road during an aborted landing on runway 36 (2,155 feet by 70 feet, dry asphalt). Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident with southerly winds. The pilot stated that he touched down, "dumped" the flaps, and made a decision that he needed to go-around. He applied full power and tried to clear the black top road at the end of the runway. He stated that the road was higher than the runway and had a 2-3 foot "build up" over the road bed. The main landing gear hit the lip on the black top. The left main landing gear separated from the airplane, and the right main landing gear was bent. He then departed and landed at an alternate airport. The Airport Facility Directory lists runway 36 as having a displaced threshold of 518 feet. A "road" is also listed under runway 36.
Probable cause
The proper touchdown point not attained by the pilot during landing. The road and tailwind were contributing factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA250
- Event ID
- 20040923X01482
- Case number
- CHI04CA250
- 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: 5a84c9ce435a6543180dabeb6b1e2411b9cd7f521dd6b842d628e51ebbc03c64; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:48:16.960Z.