NYC07CA141 · Piper PA31-310
Piper PA31-310 · Accident: undershoot on approach
From W66 · Warrenton, VA to Donegal Springs Airpark (N71)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07CA141
- 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 PA31-310 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA31
- 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
- N97044
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W66 · Warrenton, VATo Donegal Springs Airpark (N71), Marietta, PA
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 obtained
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 of the Piper PA-31-450 reported that he did not have any mechanical or performance problems with the airplane during the instrument flight and subsequent visual approach. The pilot also reported that it was his habit to land unusually close to the runway threshold. He believed that this approach "looked perfect," but at the "last minute," he judged the airplane to be "just a little low" and attempted a correction. The airplane then experienced a "hard hit," and the pilot thought that the main wheels contacted the lip at the end of the runway pavement. The airplane came to rest straddling the right edge of the runway, and was unable to be taxied due to landing gear damage. No one else was present at the time of the accident. The pilot kept a lookout for other aircraft that might attempt to take off or land on the runway, until air traffic control was notified and the airport closed. Ground scars were consistent with landing gear impact just short of the runway. The accident flight was the pilot's third flight to this airport. The pilot stated that neither the weather nor the airport posed any hazards to his landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to obtain the proper touchdown point, which resulted in an undershoot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07CA141
- Event ID
- 20070807X01131
- Case number
- NYC07CA141
- 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: 87b5ebff80fd9f8cf9326881383bc84b43107b2b51e04837ce93877b872ea42a; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:44:55.121Z.