GAA18CA204 · Piper PA28 161
Flight Safety International Piper PA28 161 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE) to Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA204
- 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 161
- 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
- N158ND
- Operator
- Flight Safety International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Okeechobee County Airport (OBE), Okeechobee, FLTo Vero Beach Regional Airport (VRB), Vero Beach, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 20 years (built 1998)
- 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 in flight
- 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, during approach, he was above the glideslope after adding full flaps, so he lowered the nose to lose altitude. He added that he "brought a little more speed than intended" into ground effect and the airplane yawed to the left. He overcorrected to the right. The airplane touched down to the right of the runway centerline with the nose pointed 45° to the left. The student attempted to maintain directional control, but the airplane exited the runway to the right and the right wing struck a runway sign. The student pilot taxied back onto the runway and to the parking ramp without further incident.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The chief flight instructor of the flight school reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The automated weather observation station located on the airport reported that, about 37 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 360° at 6 knots. The same automated station reported that, about 23 minutes after the accident, the wind was from 030° at 11 knots, gusting to 17 knots. The airplane landed on runway 04.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain a stabilized approach, which resulted in overcorrection with the rudder during the landing, loss of control, and a runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA204
- Event ID
- 20180304X40258
- Case number
- GAA18CA204
- 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: 3189a7469f8cd9273b6211988b8fd669c9b1a33a94852c03729a651c3d2b27cb; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:34:08.559Z.