ATL06FA030 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG) to Macon Downtown Airport (MAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06FA030
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-180
- 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
- N2169T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport (CRG), Jacksonville, FLTo Macon Downtown Airport (MAC), Macon, GA
- 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 · IFR initial 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, 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 requested the localizer 10-approach to the Macon Downtown Airport, Macon, Georgia (MAC). The pilot was radar vectored to intercept the localizer, and cleared for the localizer 10-approach. Shortly thereafter, the pilot advised approach control that he had over flown the localizer. The approach control specialist issued vectors back to the localizer, and he was cleared for another localizer 10-approach. The pilot reported to approach control that he was having trouble staying on the localizer, and requested to go to the Middle Georgia Airport, Macon, Georgia (MCN). He was subsequently cleared for the ILS runway 5-approach to MCN. The MCN tower advised approach control that the pilot had panicked during his approach, and went missed approach. The pilot contacted the MCN tower, reported that he had lost the localizer, and requested if he could be taken around to do the approach again. He was issued radar vectors back to the ILS runway 5-approach, and about one-half mile from the approach, the pilot requested to come around for another approach after drifting off course. The pilot made two more attempts to land at MCN before being radar vectored to the Peachtree City Airport-Falcon (FFC) localizer 31-approach. During the approach into FFC, radar contact was lost with the airplane. The airplane had collided with trees about 1 mile from the approach end of runway 31. Postcrash examination of the aircraft structure, flight controls, systems, engine, and propeller showed no anomalies. The pilot received his instrument rating less than 6 months before the accident, and had accumulated 17.1 total hours of actual instrument flight time. He had 133 hours of simulated instrument flight hours.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient altitude while performing an instrument approach in instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in an in-flight collision with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06FA030
- Event ID
- 20060120X00097
- Case number
- ATL06FA030
- 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 2006-01-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f81c4308aee349b3cb0980f11ba291c6d1307140e1e72f336fa1ffb60d7facb4; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:38:11.664Z.