ERA24LA113 · Piper PA28 181
Piper PA28 181 · Accident: wrong surface or wrong airport while taxiing
From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB) to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA113
- 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
- 0
- 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 181
- 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
- N650FT
- Operator
- Florida Institute of Technology
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Melbourne Orlando International Airport (MLB), Melbourne, FLTo Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ), Sarasota, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Taxi · into takeoff position
- 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
- Wrong surface or wrong airport
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot receiving instruction reported that after receiving clearance from the control tower to take off, he taxied onto the runway during nighttime conditions. As the airplane proceeded along the center of the taxiway, he mistook the right runway edge line for the runway centerline and attempted to take off. During the takeoff roll, the airplane impacted a runway edge light, and went into the grass area adjacent to the runway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the horizontal stabilator and the right wing during the accident. The pilot and the flight instructor reported there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction’s failure to correctly identify the runway centerline prior to initiating the nighttime takeoff, which resulted in a collision with a runway edge light and subsequent runway excursion. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's inadequate monitoring of the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA113
- Event ID
- 20240215193798
- Case number
- ERA24LA113
- 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, coordinates, 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: b74578454ad6bab6b9f7464bdbb388b97ac2976a2e005d6fae2edbbfee5b3025; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:30:53.927Z.