GAA18CA347 · Piper PA28 180
Piper PA28 180 · Accident: controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT) en route
From Eldorado Airport (27R) to El Paso International Airport (ELP)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA347
- 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 180
- 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
- N9494J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Eldorado Airport (27R), Eldorado, TXTo El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 52 years (built 1966)
- 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
- En route
- 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)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, while en route in mountainous terrain at night at 6,500 ft, he encountered turbulence and downdrafts, during which time, he "felt a couple of impacts on the left side." He continued to the destination airport, where he noticed the ELT was transmitting over the radio. During the landing, the left main landing gear collapsed. The pilot reported that he initially thought the airplane had struck a bird, but postaccident examination revealed that the left wing had impacted a tree.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left wing.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate altitude while flying over mountainous terrain in turbulent wind conditions at night, which resulted in a tree strike.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA347
- Event ID
- 20180514X70043
- Case number
- GAA18CA347
- 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 2018-05-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7260b3d13a06c9e49d928c3606b63e9704d2041723f9baaa9dbad99546c034ad; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:10:10.757Z.