CEN14FA224 · Piper PA 32R-300
Piper PA 32R-300 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Hereford Municipal Airport (KHRX) to Highmore Municipal Airport (9D0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA224
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
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
- N8700E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hereford Municipal Airport (KHRX), Hereford, TXTo Highmore Municipal Airport (9D0), Highmore, SD
- Aircraft age
- About 38 years (built 1976)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a dark night cross-country flight, the instrument-rated pilot was approaching the intended airport for landing when the airplane collided with the blades of a wind turbine tower. The weather had started to deteriorate and precipitation echoes were observed on radar. Witnesses in the area described low clouds, windy conditions, and precipitation. In addition, weather briefing records and statements made to a witness indicate that the pilot was aware of the current and forecast weather conditions for the route of flight. Investigators were unable to determine why the airplane was operating at a low altitude; however, the pilot was likely attempting to remain clear of the clouds even though both the pilot and the airplane were capable of flying in instrument meteorological conditions. An examination of the airplane, systems, and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Toxicology findings revealed a small amount of ethanol in the pilot's blood, which was unlikely due to ingestion since no ethanol was found in liver or muscle tissue.
The investigation revealed that the wind turbine farm was not marked on either sectional chart covering the accident location; however, the pilot was familiar with the area and with the wind turbine farm. Investigators were not able to determine what the pilot was using for navigation just before the accident. The light on the wind turbine tower that was struck was not operational at the time of the accident, and the outage was not documented in a notice to airmen. The wind turbine that was struck was the 5th tower in a string of towers oriented east to west, then the string continued south and southwest with an additional 13 towers. If the pilot observed the lights from the surrounding wind turbines, it is possible that he perceived a break in the light string between the wind turbines as an obstacle-free zone.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to continue the flight into known deteriorating weather conditions at a low altitude and his subsequent failure to remain clear of an unlit wind turbine. Contributing to the accident was the inoperative obstruction light on the wind turbine, which prevented the pilot from visually identifying the wind turbine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA224
- Event ID
- 20140428X10808
- Case number
- CEN14FA224
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-04-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e5549463970bcfba121c7c5c21e676cb743cbe8930a2ee1f06e11bddbecf3484; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:13:57.242Z.