ERA25LA072 · Piper PA28 181
SkyBlue Aviation Piper PA28 181 and Fxe Flightcenter Cessna 172 S · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA072
- 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
Aircraft 1 · 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
- N90874
- Operator
- SkyBlue Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport (F45), West Palm Beach, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1985)
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Cessna 172 S
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- 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
- N497SJ
- Operator
- Fxe Flightcenter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 2000)
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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 › 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 low-wing airplane and the high-wing airplane were both being operated as instructional flights. Both airplanes arrived from different airports and had completed several uneventful landings at the non-tower-controlled accident airport. The pilots of both airplanes reported that they were transmitting position reports and hearing transmissions on the airport’s common traffic advisory frequency. Review of ADS-B data indicated that the low-wing airplane flew a wider left traffic pattern, and the high wing airplane flew a closer left traffic pattern before the airplanes converged on final approach, and the left wing of the high-wing airplane contacted the upper cabin of the low-wing airplane, resulting in substantial damage to both airplanes. The instructors onboard each airplane took control, and landed without further incident.
The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the failure of the pilots to see and avoid the other airplane while operating in the airport traffic pattern, which resulted in a midair collision.
Probable cause
The pilots' failure to see and avoid the other airplane, which resulted in a midair collision during short final approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA072
- Event ID
- 20241210199402
- Case number
- ERA25LA072
- 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: c7c284932d4184bb35430e060feb6494429079b82fa416dba3438be732fe2dbd; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:47:38.417Z.