GAA19CA016 · Piper PA24 250
Piper PA24 250 · Accident: landing area undershoot
From Barrow County Airport (WDR) to Barrow County Airport (WDR)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA016
- 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 PA24 250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA24
- 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
- N8220P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Barrow County Airport (WDR), Winder, GATo Barrow County Airport (WDR), Winder, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Landing area undershoot
- 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 pilot reported that, during a night flight, while lowering the flaps for landing, the cockpit lights turned off. He attempted to turn the lights back on to no avail. He added that the precision approach path indicator (PAPI) lights were off and that he could not get the runway lights to turn on either. As he was landing past "the first arrow in front [chevron in the displaced threshold]," he heard a "thump." He taxied the airplane to the ramp without further incident.
The passenger, an airframe and powerplant mechanic, reported that, during approach after the cockpit lights went out, he used his flashlight to light up the cockpit. He was unable to correct the panel lights but observed that the runway lights were "bright." He added that, during the landing, he felt the "bottom drop out" and that the airplane landed hard and bounced.
Postaccident examination revealed that the right horizontal stabilator sustained substantial damage. The pilot added that he and the passenger went to the beginning of the approach runway and found pieces of broken runway lights.
Archived NOTAMs for the date of the accident stated that:
RWY 31 PAPI UNUSABLE
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain an adequate approach path at night after an electrical failure, which resulted in the airplane striking runway lights.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA016
- Event ID
- 20181005X25343
- Case number
- GAA19CA016
- 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: a211bbb8d8f50f9a5fe6d145505d5c6765874d42c75509695d88ce01ae125a3d; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:18:32.886Z.