ERA10CA366 · Piper J-3C
Piper J-3C · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
From Buckhead, GA to Buckhead, GA
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10CA366
- 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 J-3C
- Aircraft type
- Piper J-3
- 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
- N98342
- Operator
- RDM Ventures LL:C
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buckhead, GATo Buckhead, GA
- 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 go-around
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he departed from his private airstrip on a local area flight. He observed thunderstorms approaching the area and the winds were increasing, so he returned to the airstrip for landing. On final approach, he noticed that some children had left a gate open and his miniature donkeys were crossing the runway. He added power to go around, but the airplane would not climb. The airplane encountered a downdraft and collided vertically with trees and the ground. Examination of the airframe, flight controls and engine assembly and accessories revealed no anomalies. Weather radar data indicated that the area overhead the accident site was associated with dissipating echoes, which were decreasing in area coverage and in intensity with time, and implied a dissipating rain shower that would be typical of prevailing downdraft activity.
Probable cause
An in-flight encounter with a downdraft during a go-around, resulting in a collision with trees and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10CA366
- Event ID
- 20100719X03038
- Case number
- ERA10CA366
- 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: a55e4b58a732de35675e7bb5872bbaaa362d463c226404325c371876fe941bc5; retrieved 2026-09-15T14:43:04.203Z.