CEN20LA401 · Piper PA32 301
Piper PA32 301 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Glenndale Airport (8I3) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA401
- 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
- 3 · 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 PA32 301
- 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
- N8213X
- Operator
- Jerral A. Long · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Glenndale Airport (8I3), Kokomo, INTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1980)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Pole
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane owner reported that the accident pilot had volunteered to fly the airplane in support of a charity fundraising event. It was the pilot’s first flight of the day. The accident pilot was a local pilot and had flown the airplane for the event the entire day prior with no issues, so he was familiar with the airport’s approach. A witness reported that the airplane appeared low on the approach. He noted the flaps were extended and the engine was running. Then the airplane’s nose-gear and the right main landing gear “clipped” a utility pole. The airplane subsequently impacted in a cornfield and immediately caught fire. The witness added that it did not appear the airplane tried to climb to avoid the power lines before striking the utility pole.
The airplane struck the tops of a 79 ft wood power pole and a 61 ft wood dual pole utility tower on the approach to runway 18 about 875 ft north of the approach end of runway. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The accident is consistent with the pilot’s failure to see the utility poles while on the approach.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate visual lookout, which resulted in a collision with a utility pole and the subsequent collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA401
- Event ID
- 20200920X20031
- Case number
- CEN20LA401
- 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, cause areas. 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: d9a328beef3f56a7fa659e78e0e04590fbc7bfffc6fb6b37c325e808ea98478e; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:20:07.937Z.