Piper PA-28-180 N3997R

Summary

On 14 January 2002 at about 17:10 local time, a Piper PA-28-180 registered N3997R, operated by Eagle East Aviation, was involved in an accident near Oxford, Massachusetts, United States. One person was on board and one had minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

14 January 2002 at 17:10

Classification

Accident

Location

Oxford, Massachusetts, United States

Nearest airport

Oxford (43M)

Coordinates

Not recorded

Aircraft

Piper PA-28-180

Registration

N3997R

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Eagle East Aviation

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Business

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Lawrence → Southbridge

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

IAD02LA025

1 person had minor injuries.

The pilot's delayed aborted landing and his failure to attain obstacle clearance. The pilot's misjudgment of distance is a contributing factor.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The pilot was on a cross country flight when he became disoriented and misidentified the airport that he intended to land at with another airport located about 9 miles away. Both airports had the same runway alignment and Unicom frequency. The pilot performed a short field approach to runway 02, and landed about 1/3 of the way down the 2,097 foot long snow and patchy ice covered runway. He said that he "landed longer down the runway than he would have liked, and that was part of the problem." During the landing roll-out, the pilot said that he avoided hard braking due to the runway conditions. As the airplane came over a rise, he noticed a snow bank located at the end of the runway and decided to abort the landing. With less than half of the runway length available, the pilot applied power and tried to establish a climb, but was unable to clear the trees. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical deficiencies. He also reported that the accident could have been prevented by, "strict adherence to the flight plan...use of multiple characteristics to identify rural airports...[and] more precise execution of short-field procedure." A review of the Piper PA-28-180 takeoff performance charts revealed that the airplane would have needed approximately 1,625 feet to take off over a 50-foot obstacle on a paved, level, dry runway in zero wind conditions with 25 degrees of flaps extended, and full power applied before brake release.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.