GAA19CA304 · Piper PA32R 301T
Piper PA32R 301T · Accident: wildlife encounter (non-bird) during landing
From Marion County Regional Airport (FLP) to Marion County Regional Airport (FLP)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA304
- 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 PA32R 301T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N9966G
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marion County Regional Airport (FLP), Flippin, ARTo Marion County Regional Airport (FLP), Flippin, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 14 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Wildlife encounter (non-bird)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during the landing roll, three deer ran across the runway. He felt a hard strike on the inboard section of the right wing, saw a deer roll over the right wing, and felt a sensation like the right landing gear "hopped" as it ran over a second deer. The pilot was able to maintain control of the airplane and taxied to the ramp without further incident.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot added that this was the second deer strike the airplane experienced in the previous three weeks, that he had seen deer standing on the runway numerous times, and that airport management was aware of the situation. He stated that the airport had only 500 linear ft of chain-link fence and a gate at the airport entrance and that the rest of the airport was only surrounded by three strands of barbed wire in "various states of disrepair."
The Federal Aviation Administration Chart Supplement, South Central U.S. page for the accident airport, in part, stated the following:
"Wildlife on and [in vicinity of] airport."
Probable cause
The airplane’s collision with deer during the landing and the airport’s failure to provide an adequate barrier to prevent wildlife from entering the runway environment despite previous deer strikes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA304
- Event ID
- 20190602X84440
- Case number
- GAA19CA304
- 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 2019-06-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6be3824ac0b2da03099f9abe979d6207c6100096d1d8dea0fdf7043bc8bfc8d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:07:49.397Z.