OPS08IA006 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Incident during takeoff
From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ) to Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (KDED)
Event
- NTSB case
- OPS08IA006
- 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
- Incident
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N140FT
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Florida Regional Airport (SGJ), St. Augustine, FLTo Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (KDED), Deland, FL
- 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
- Takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Organizational issues › Support/oversight/monitoring
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 departed on runway 6 at St. Augustine (SGJ) Airport, St. Augustine, FL, and proceeded off the end of the runway into the marshy waters of the Intracoastal Waterway. According to the pilot, "The air traffic controller told me that I was good there and gave me clearance to depart 31. I understood that to mean I was on [runway] 31 and clear for departure so I completed my pre-takeoff checklist and began my ground roll. Then I noticed I was on the wrong runway and tried to stop, but was too late and the momentum carried me into the marsh." According to the FAA's preliminary report, the student solo pilot arrived from Deland, Florida and requested to taxi back to the active runway for departure. The controller instructed the pilot to make a left turn on B2 then taxi to runway 31 via taxiway B, and hold short of runway 31 at taxiway B4. The pilot acknowledged the clearance. The pilot taxied past taxiway B4 and went onto runway 6/24. While on runway 6/24 and short of runway 31, the pilot requested progressive taxi instructions from the tower controller. The controller advised the pilot, "You're fine where you're at. Are you ready to go?" The pilot stated that he was ready to depart. The controller instructed "Zero foxtrot tango, runway 31 at runway six intersection, cleared for takeoff left turn southbound." The pilot read back "cleared for takeoff." According to the preliminary report, the tower controller observed the aircraft make a turn onto runway 31 at runway 6 intersection and then returned to do administrative duties, (the hourly weather). The pilot had departed straight ahead on runway 6 from the intersection of runway 6/31 with approximately 200 feet of runway remaining. A short time later the pilot buzzed the tower door and advised the controller that he had ran off the runway into the Intracoastal Waterway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adhere to the controller's takeoff instruction. Contributing to the incident was the controller's failure to properly monitor the flight, and the controller's decision to perform lesser duty priorities during the takeoff roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record OPS08IA006
- Event ID
- 20080208X00158
- Case number
- OPS08IA006
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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 2008-02-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a91c1e798f38c57bd7449a9664ef66e1325c835c9ae31530a5a313bf284102d4; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:21:26.945Z.