ERA24LA233 · Piper PA32RT 300T
Piper PA32RT 300T · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Albert Whitted Airport (SPG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA233
- 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 PA32RT 300T
- 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
- N313RB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Albert Whitted Airport (SPG), Saint Petersburg, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 › Action/decision
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 flew uneventfully to a nearby turf-runway airport to purchase fuel. He purchased 35 gallons and attempted to takeoff on runway 7, which was 3,120 ft long. About three-fourths down the runway during takeoff roll, the airspeed was increasing, but had not yet reached rotation speed. At that time, a gust of wind lifted the airplane 10 to 15 ft into the air, before it settled back on to the runway. The pilot initiated a rejected takeoff; however, he subsequently did not think the airplane would stop with 800 ft of runway remaining. He then decided to re-apply full power and try to become airborne again. The airplane traveled off the end of the runway and came to rest upright in an adjacent watermelon field, resulting in substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The recorded wind at an airport located 9 miles away from the accident site, about the time of the accident, was from 120° at 10 kts, gusting to 16 kts. Had the pilot continued the rejected takeoff, rather than initiate a second takeoff attempt with little runway remaining, the airplane may have traveled off the end of the turf runway and into the watermelon field, but it would have been at a much slower groundspeed, resulting in less or no damage.
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to re-attempt a takeoff with little runway remaining, after rejecting a takeoff in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in a runway overrun at a higher speed and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA233
- Event ID
- 20240531194353
- Case number
- ERA24LA233
- 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: 588d17ae570c94841cc446c852f684ed57eac2e63b2865e506c9493b41ae5988; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:49:20.979Z.