ERA15CA065 · SOCATA TB 20 TRINIDAD
SOCATA TB 20 TRINIDAD · Accident on approach
From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) to Hilton Head Airport (HXD)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15CA065
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
SOCATA TB 20 TRINIDAD
- Aircraft type
- Socata TB-20
- 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
- N85AV
- Operator
- Robert Herman
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS), Knoxville, TNTo Hilton Head Airport (HXD), Hilton Head Island, SC
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1985)
- 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 · IFR final approach
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting an instrument approach for landing in night instrument meteorological conditions. After receiving the approach clearance from air traffic control, the pilot tuned his communication radio to the airport's common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) and attempted to activate the airport lighting by repeatedly pressing the push-to-talk switch. As the pilot continued to descend on the approach, he observed the approach path indicator lights, but could not see the runway edge lights, as they were not illuminated. He again attempted to activate the runway lights, to no avail. The pilot elected to continue the approach, which he described as "high and long," and during the landing roll, the airplane ran off the end of the runway and contacted an airport sign, resulting in substantial damage to the right wing. Postaccident examination revealed that the airplane had touched down on a taxiway, and came to rest in a grassy area between the taxiway and the runway. The pilot reported there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation, and believed he had incorrectly tuned the CTAF, which resulted in his inability to activate the airport lighting during the approach. Following the accident, a test of the airport's pilot-controlled lighting system revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent selection of an incorrect frequency, which resulted in his inability to activate the airport lighting, and his subsequent decision to continue the approach in dark night conditions despite having not positively identified the runway environment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15CA065
- Event ID
- 20141202X05625
- Case number
- ERA15CA065
- 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 2014-11-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 91c1ef32eb802f3850ef10648f60fef90aeffa77e2acd8805fad9a8f0504b0a6; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:57:15.113Z.