GAA17CA487 · Piper PA28 181
TransPac Aviation Academy Piper PA28 181 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD) to Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA487
- 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 PA28 181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N915PA
- Operator
- TransPac Aviation Academy
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZTo Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD), Chandler, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1999)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo student pilot reported that, after completing three takeoffs and landings unassisted with his flight instructor, he took off for his first solo. He added that, during the first solo landing, the airplane "floated" in ground effect for about 4 to 5 seconds, and he added rudder to align the airplane with the runway centerline. He further added that the airplane's nosewheel was "not straight when it touched [down]" on the runway. Subsequently, the student pilot applied brake to maintain directional control and then applied power to abort the landing, but the airplane veered off the runway to the right. He then reduced power to idle and stopped the airplane in the grass next to the runway and awaited instructions from air traffic control.
The left wing sustained substantial damage.
The student pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA487
- Event ID
- 20170814X23606
- Case number
- GAA17CA487
- 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: eb6e73dd4e74d3ac5182b77038ce9e16462d1a06d3eb375385bfbc1b6646de14; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:42:10.855Z.