GAA17CA072 · Piper PA 28R 200
Spanaflight Piper PA 28R 200 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) on approach
From Pierce County-Thun Field (KPLU) to Pierce County-Thun Field (KPLU)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA072
- 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 28R 200
- 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
- N9466K
- Operator
- Spanaflight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pierce County-Thun Field (KPLU), Puyallup, WATo Pierce County-Thun Field (KPLU), Puyallup, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 40 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
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Organizational issues › Management
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot under examination, he was to accomplish a short-field landing to the runway 17 numbers during his single-engine airplane flight instructor practical examination. He reported that, during the transition from final to the flare, the bottom of the fuselage struck an aircraft traffic monitoring camera system. The camera system was located about 125 ft north of the runway 17 threshold and was about 8 inches high. After striking the camera, the pilot added power and landed the airplane on the runway 17 numbers. There were no NOTAMs regarding the use of the aircraft traffic monitoring camera system issued at the time of the accident. However, the next day, the airport manager issued a NOTAM regarding the deployment of the camera system. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing spar.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The airport’s failure to issue a NOTAM regarding the deployment of the traffic monitoring camera system before the accident, which resulted in the airplane striking the camera system during a short-field approach and landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA072
- Event ID
- 20161117X31658
- Case number
- GAA17CA072
- 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: aa8562bfb9249248a7a5d89561b844159bd563805b3ea6d0191d10e9549d5a7f; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:50:48.154Z.