ERA10FA180 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 and Sentman LEE H RV-6 · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10FA180
- 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
- 3 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Piper PA-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N823AG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Deland Municipal Sidney H Taylor Field (DED), Deland, FLTo Williston Municipal Airport (X60), Williston, 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
- Approach
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Sentman LEE H RV-6
- Aircraft type
- Sentman Lee RV-6
- 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
- N788LL
- Operator
- Sentman Lee H
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ocala International Airport - Jim Taylor Field (OCF), Ocala, FLTo Williston Municipal Airport (X60), Williston, 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
- Approach
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplanes were both on approach to the destination airport, operating under visual conditions, when they collided about 3 nautical miles southeast of the destination airport. The wreckage of both airplanes came to rest within 100 yards of one another. The Piper was flying on a course to the right of the RV-6’s departure airport. Around the same time, the RV-6 departed, and both airplanes' flight paths nearly paralleled one another as they continued on course to the destination airport. During the next 7 minutes, the Piper made a gradual descent from 5,200 feet mean sea level (msl) to 1,700 feet msl at a ground speed of about 132 knots. The Piper continued on the same heading until about 2 miles before impact, where it made a gradual left turn. The RV-6 (altitudes unknown) continued on the same flight path until about 4 miles before impact, where it began a slow right turn. The last portion of recorded radar data of the RV-6 and the Piper showed the airplanes were converging on respective true courses of about 328 and 294 degrees. Based upon this radar data, the expected collision angle was calculated to be about 34 degrees. The collision angle between the airplanes was physically determined by measuring the mass intrusion signature of the RV-6's propeller blade into the left wing of the Piper. This signature corresponds to a collision angle of about 44 degrees. Based on this measurement and radar derived ground speeds, the RV-6's convergence angle was calculated to be about 66 degrees right and the Piper’s was 70 degrees left.
Probable cause
The pilots of both airplanes did not maintain an adequate visual lookout to see and avoid each other.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10FA180
- Event ID
- 20100320X60644
- Case number
- ERA10FA180
- 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: a46258fd90838d879a5dac0a98f3b0ea5b9d5758da3d2ea2c4cb8e914ed9fe05; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:05:12.690Z.