LAX07CA285 · Piper PA-32R-301T
Piper PA-32R-301T · Accident: hard landing
From San Carlos Airport (SQL) to Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX07CA285
- 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-32R-301T
- 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
- N4175A
- Operator
- Albert P. Halluin · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Carlos Airport (SQL), San Carlos, CATo Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45), Groveland, CA
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane's wing and fuselage were buckled during a hard landing. When the pilot attempted to land at his intended destination, he encountered a gusty crosswind with downdrafts. The pilot reported that approaching the runway and "just before coming over the threshold" about 20 feet above the ground, "there was a sudden downdraft and the plane rapidly and suddenly sunk toward the ground." The right main landing gear impacted the gravel and dirt area about 10 feet in front and to the right of the runway. Ground-based witnesses observed the mishap and informed the pilot that the landing gear appeared damaged. The pilot aborted the landing and performed a go-around. The pilot diverted to an alternate airport that had a longer runway where he made an intentional gear up landing. An examination of the airplane revealed that the right main landing gear was broken, and the right wing and fuselage were deformed.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate compensation for the gusty, crosswind and downdraft wind condition, which resulted in a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX07CA285
- Event ID
- 20071012X01575
- Case number
- LAX07CA285
- 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: 64b171e241c4f1051ee3c3fab3d1d44db5110b44ce6b86dd8edb630ab3626c65; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:23:01.215Z.