ERA25LA363 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: landing area undershoot
From Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA363
- 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 PA-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N47630
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY), West Tisbury, MATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Landing area undershoot
- 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
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 was landing the airplane in night visual meteorological conditions. The pilot reported that during the turn to final approach, the tower air traffic controller cleared a large transport-category airplane for departure. To avoid potential wake turbulence, the pilot adjusted the planned touchdown point to be before the expected rotation point of the departing airplane. While reconfiguring for the new touchdown point, the pilot encountered glare from the runway approach lighting system, which temporarily degraded his night vision and momentary disoriented him. The airplane then began to sink and as the pilot was making corrective control inputs he felt a “bump,” after which he landed uneventfully. Subsequent examination of the runway’s approach lighting system and the airplane revealed that the airplane had struck the runway lighting system before touchdown, resulting in substantial damage to the root sections of both wings and the right side of the stabilator. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain proper glidepath during a night visual approach, which resulted in a collision with the runway lighting system. Contributing to the outcome was the pilot’s momentary disorientation due to glare from the runway approach lighting system.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA363
- Event ID
- 20250925201710
- Case number
- ERA25LA363
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2025-09-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 609235345bd4c6a0b9352dcf2a7d8da2cc2fc400309cb3853df0ad7d83bf16ed; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:22:56.861Z.