ERA09FA116 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Alexandria Field Airport (N85) to Alexandria Field Airport (N85)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09FA116
- 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
- 1 · 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-28-140
- 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
- N95156
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alexandria Field Airport (N85), Pittstown, NJTo Alexandria Field Airport (N85), Pittstown, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and the flight instructor were performing a training flight toward the pilot's instrument rating and the pilot was attempting to regain night currency. After 15 minutes of flying, the pilot returned to the departure airport, which was also where the flight instructor was based. The pilot flew a practice instrument approach before entering the downwind leg of the traffic pattern for landing and recalled being about 100 feet below the published traffic pattern altitude. Though the pilot could only recall turning onto the base leg of the traffic pattern, the airplane struck trees aligned with the final approach course about 1/4 mile from the runway threshold. The trees in the vicinity of the accident site are about 150 feet tall. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of any mechanical deficiencies, nor were any reported by the pilot.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain an adequate clearance from trees during the night landing approach and the flight instructor's inadequate remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09FA116
- Event ID
- 20081231X43053
- Case number
- ERA09FA116
- 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 2008-12-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cfb1bb03d63c96a873141b9c3ef8852ad235f30f5e4e744b3d822e957bb26093; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:53:24.092Z.