WPR10CA157 · Piper PA-28-161
Golden State Flying Club Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: birdstrike on approach
From Gillespie Field (SEE) to Gillespie Field (SEE)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA157
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N8441B
- Operator
- Golden State Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, CATo Gillespie Field (SEE), El Cajon, 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) and student performed a series of takeoffs and landings at the airport. The airplane's anti-collision light was operating. Clouds were located about 2,800 feet above ground level and the visibility was 25 miles. There was light turbulence in the area. While in the downwind leg for their fourth landing, the air traffic controller requested that the pilot fly an extended downwind leg. The CFI stated that "shortly thereafter, we noticed a red-tail hawk slightly ahead and at our same altitude. Upon sighting the bird, I immediately took control from my student and initiated a climbing turn to the left. A few seconds later we heard a loud impact on our right wing tip. I immediately looked out the window and noticed the wing had extensive damage." The CFI reported that she immediately landed, and during the approach she did not detect any noticeable effect on the airplane's performance. A 3-foot-long by 8-inch-deep area of the right wing's leading edge was crushed aft, and the internal wing structure was bent. No residue from the bird was found.
Probable cause
An in-flight collision with a bird in the downwind leg of the airport's traffic pattern.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA157
- Event ID
- 20100313X04229
- Case number
- WPR10CA157
- 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: investigation status. 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: a0680a457ed2687783123e8e1e9bfd8daac6c75a834b2bb70fd1889b7f31ea43; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:44:46.777Z.