GAA18CA053 · Piper PA 28R 200
Piper PA 28R 200 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Flagler Executive Airport (KFIN) to Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA053
- 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
- N5381F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Flagler Executive Airport (KFIN), Flagler Beach, FLTo Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB), Melborne, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 41 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
- Landing
- 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
According to the pilot, during an approach in the rain, there were wind gusts, and he retracted the flaps to zero. He noted that, "I decided to land a little faster than the preferred 75-80 mph."
The pilot reported that the airplane "did not settle into a normal rollout." He recalled that a few seconds into the landing roll, the airplane veered to the left and exited the left side of the runway. The airplane continued across the safety area and collided with a drainage culvert.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the engine mounts.
Photographs provided by the Federal Aviation Administration aviation safety inspector showed three parallel rubber skid markings that began about 1,500 ft from the approach end of the runway. The markings began in the center of the runway and exhibited a sharp left turn that continued along a path through the safety area and stopped at the drainage culvert.
The pilot reported that the left main landing gear assembly and tire failed during the landing roll. However, an examination of the landing gear assembly, wheel, and tire revealed that there were no mechanical anomalies or failures before the runway excursion.
The METAR at the accident airport reported that, about the time of the accident, the rain was light, and the wind was from 010° at 12 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of directional control during the landing roll on the wet runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA053
- Event ID
- 20171116X53956
- Case number
- GAA18CA053
- 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: 4449b69f4f25724891b07317879168ca172fd8ae4783bcd7fb84531ba67ff7fc; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:00:25.304Z.