DFW08LA001 · Indus T211 Thorpedo
Aviator Air Center Indus T211 Thorpedo · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Grand Prairie Municipal Airport (KGPM) to Grand Prairie Municipal Airport (KGPM)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08LA001
- 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
Indus T211 Thorpedo
- Aircraft type
- Indus T211
- 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
- N211LS
- Operator
- Aviator Air Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grand Prairie Municipal Airport (KGPM), Grand Praire, TXTo Grand Prairie Municipal Airport (KGPM), Grand Prairie, TX
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Became lost/disoriented, encountered
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certificated sport pilot was on a local flight when he noticed that daylight was quickly fading. The pilot immediately elected to initiate a return flight. During the return flight, the pilot became disoriented instead of heading eastbound; he proceeded to follow a highway in a northbound direction. The pilot never saw the city skyline and continued northbound. When the pilot observed a lake thinking it was the one just south of his destination airport, he reported to the control tower that he was over the spillway and entering downwind. However, the flight was actually entering the traffic pattern at a different airport; 31.1 nautical miles north of his intended destination. The pilot turned base leg, overflew the final approach, and then executed a right 270-degree turn for another approach. At this point, the pilot became aware he was at a different airport, but had to land somewhere due to darkness. The pilot avoided the runway approach lights, but flew into the trees short of the runway. The end of civil twilight and beginning of night for this date was 1934 CDT.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper preflight planning and preparation which led to his getting lost on a local area flight and his failure to maintain clearance from the trees. Contributing to the accident were the prevailing dark night illumination and the pilot's lack of night flight experience.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08LA001
- Event ID
- 20071031X01692
- Case number
- DFW08LA001
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-10-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6da273685e10d7037016e9e443d1135e30c9cf62587a5e6e06009eb79f56fb6a; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:43:17.257Z.