DFW05LA054 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Decatur Municipal Airport (LUD) to Luderitz Airport (LUD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05LA054
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N9419C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Decatur Municipal Airport (LUD), Decatur, TXTo Luderitz Airport (LUD)
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Dual student › Clearance, not maintained
- Object › Wire, transmission
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 6,150 hour flight instructor reported that after completing two touch-and-go landings at the airport they decided to make a full stop landing. While on final approach to runway 35, the airplane struck power lines and impacted terrain just short of the runway. The instructor stated that during the approach, he informed the student pilot that he "was getting too low." Runway 35 is equipped with a medium intensity lighting system, with eight green lights to identify the end of the runway. Runway 35 is not equipped with either a PAPI or a VASI.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain obstacle clearance and the instructor's inadequate supervision. Contributing factors were the prevailing dark night conditions, and the power line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05LA054
- Event ID
- 20050113X00049
- Case number
- DFW05LA054
- 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 2005-01-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 98962a628da2b59763ff66c6c3cd9b99ba25586914cc4b504e58667081ad3840; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:22:39.607Z.