ERA15CA002 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Toccoa Airport - R.G. Letourneau Field (TOC) to Toccoa Airport - R.G. Letourneau Field (TOC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA002
- 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 PA-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N6044W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Toccoa Airport - R.G. Letourneau Field (TOC), Toccoa, GATo Toccoa Airport - R.G. Letourneau Field (TOC), Toccoa, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1964)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was conducting a biennial flight review for the private pilot\owner of the airplane. The private pilot departed from the 5,008-foot-long runway, performed a touch-and-go landing without incident, and entered the traffic pattern for a simulated short-field landing. While on short final, the airplane struck a berm that was located just prior to runway and sustained substantial damage to the landing gear and right wing. The flight instructor stated that he realized that the airplane was low and expected the private pilot to add engine power; however, he did not attempt to manipulate the flight controls or provide any verbal instructions. The private pilot stated that he also realized that the airplane was low, but did not react prior to contact with the ground. Both pilots indicated that they did not experience any preaccident malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The private pilot reported about 600 hours of total flight experience, which included about 475 hours in the same make and model as the accident airplane. The flight instructor reported about 3,430 hours of total flight experience, which included about 200 hours in the same make and model as the accident airplane.
Probable cause
The private pilot's failure to maintain proper altitude and the flight instructor's failure to provide correction action, which resulted in a collision with terrain during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA002
- Event ID
- 20141003X70938
- Case number
- ERA15CA002
- 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: cece99e10f159de3d07b79ccb2847754c447b74946791fb40135e869b01f9608; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:49:39.195Z.