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WPR21LA343 · Piper PA-24-400

30 Aug 2021 · Fullerton, CA, United States

Piper PA-24-400 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach

From Chino Airport (CNO) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
WPR21LA343
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
Event fatalities
Unknown
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 PA-24-400

Aircraft type
Piper PA-24
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
N8501P
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Chino Airport (CNO), Chino, CATo not recorded
Aircraft age
About 57 years (built 1964)
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
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 › Psychological

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilot reported that, while accomplishing a straight in approach to land, he was slowing the airplane down, and was not paying attention to an obstacle ahead when he extended the landing gear and flaps at the last moment. The airplane subsequently struck the airport perimeter fence and then collided with terrain before coming to rest on the runway. The wings and fuselage were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.

Probable cause

The pilot’s failure to monitor the environment and maintain a proper glidepath on approach which, resulted in a collision with the airport perimeter fence.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record WPR21LA343
Event ID
20210914103858
Case number
WPR21LA343
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: 6e361d1f41020cbcf2f3671cfc1d29fdfc2df171f1852e7174e7f2d16c8ce128; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:31:37.513Z.