CHI08CA032 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From New Market Airport (8W2) to Lee Field (2D1)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA032
- 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-28-151
- 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
- N5733W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Market Airport (8W2), New Market, VATo Lee Field (2D1), Alliance, OH
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Inoperative
- Landing gear, parking brake › Engaged
- Pilot in command › Parking brakes, inadvertent activation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that the airplane's approach and touchdown on runway 27 (2,088 feet by 130 feet, turf) were uneventful. The airplane did not decelerate as he depressed the toe brake pedals, although he felt pressure through the pedals. He repositioned his feet and attempted to apply brake pressure again without any effect on braking performance. The pilot realized that the airplane was going to run off the end of the runway and decided to shutdown the engine and turnoff the master electrical switch. He was "standing on the brakes as hard as possible" when the airplane impacted an airport perimeter fence, traveled through a ditch, and onto a nearby road. The airplane was subsequently struck by a vehicle traveling on the road. The airplane received substantial damage to both wings and the engine firewall. Examination of the turf runway after the accident failed to reveal any skid markings that could be associated with the airplane's ground track. Local law enforcement surveyed the accident site and determined that the airplane touched down with 1,072 feet of runway remaining. According to the airplane's operating handbook, at maximum gross weight the airplane required about 600 feet to stop on a paved, level, and dry runway. The operating handbook did not provide landing performance data for a turf runway. Local weather observations indicated that the surface wind was from the west-northwest at 9 knots. The airplane was equipped with a hand brake and dual toe brakes. The hand brake can also be used as a parking brake in conjunction with a locking ratchet system. Once the hand brake lever is engaged, the use of toe brakes becomes ineffective. With the hand brake fully disengaged, the left brake system functioned properly when its corresponding toe brakes (pilot and co-pilot positions) were depressed during a postaccident examination. The right brake assembly had impact damage that prevented a functional test. The pilot stated that he had used the parking brake earlier in the day, but he had alternatively used the toe brakes during the engine run-up before departing on the accident flight. He concluded that the parking brake must have "partially engaged" sometime during the flight.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent activation of the parking brake which resulted in the toe brakes becoming ineffective. Contributing to the accident was the airport perimeter fence, the ditch, and the vehicle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA032
- Event ID
- 20080104X00016
- Case number
- CHI08CA032
- 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: f38b7f8c8d263070ef97692f516ebc1220487f9d12ff865df9267ed32a4a3c54; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:17:58.822Z.