ERA11CA027 · Piper PA28 161
FlightSafety International Piper PA28 161 · Accident: wildlife encounter (non-bird) during takeoff
From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB) to Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11CA027
- 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 PA28 161
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N9247V
- Operator
- Flightsafety International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB), Vero Beach, FLTo Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB), Vero Beach, 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
- Wildlife encounter (non-bird)
- 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
According to the certificated flight instructor (CFI), the purpose of the flight was for the student pilot to perform a night cross-country. After completing a full stop landing at the destination airport, they taxied back to the runway to complete additional practice of flying in the traffic pattern. While on the takeoff roll, as the student pilot began to rotate the airplane airborne, the CFI observed an animal directly in front of the airplane on the centerline. He took authority of the flight controls in an attempt to not collide with animal as the airplane began the initial climb. He heard a "bang" as the airplane passed over what was later identified as a deer. The CFI then noticed the left rudder pedal was looser than normal and no brake pressure was observed in the left toe brake. After a few low passes and confirmation from the control tower personnel that the left landing gear was not in the normal position, the CFI decided to land the airplane. During landing rollout, the left wing struck the ground and the airplane came to rest on the runway. The postaccident examination by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed that the left landing gear had separated, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing spar. According to the CFI, no mechanical anomalies were present prior to hitting the deer.
Probable cause
An inadvertent collision with a deer during a night takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11CA027
- Event ID
- 20101020X92632
- Case number
- ERA11CA027
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-10-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 53fba5c6ad3fa212df76fad52cee1e161fe4c3c919c3756a1b6e3a78e24f11be; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:30:03.191Z.