CEN13LA497 · Perth Amboy BIRD BK
Perth Amboy BIRD BK · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From CBE · Cumberland, MD to Parr Airport (42I)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13LA497
- 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
Perth Amboy BIRD BK
- Aircraft type
- Perth Amboy BIRD BK
- 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
- N727Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CBE · Cumberland, MDTo Parr Airport (42I), Zanesville, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 83 years (built 1930)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he intentionally taxied the airplane off the runway after landing to preserve the tires on the antique airplane due to a rough runway surface. The airplane subsequently encountered an unmarked drainage ditch. A postaccident examination showed that the airplane departed the right side of the runway about 150 feet from the approach end and traveled through a 40-foot-wide area of closely mowed grass, striking a runway light in the process. The airplane continued into an area of 1-foot-tall vegetation until it impacted the drainage ditch about 500 feet from the approach end of the runway. An examination of the runway did not reveal an excessively rough surface. The occurrence of the runway excursion within 150 feet of touching down and then the airplane traveling 500 feet after exiting the runway is consistent with airplane having significant speed at the time of the excursion, rather than an exit onto the grass under controlled conditions. The pilot likely lost directional control of the airplane during landing, which resulted in the airplane departing the runway, striking the runway light, and impacting into the ditch.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13LA497
- Event ID
- 20130821X31419
- Case number
- CEN13LA497
- 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, coordinates. 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: 3f901e2ff59c1b37a49904ae8fc4bfaacc109ca9d746106a0b6d6a13b512e33b; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:34:52.087Z.