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Atlas / NTSB / ERA10CA303

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA10CA303

2010-06-02 Block Island, Rhode Island, United States Airport · BID None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N47661

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-28-181

Year of manufacture

1977 · 33 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING O&VO-360 SER (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19771003

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A5DAA8

Registrant of record

WOPUNA AND SON LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s loss of directional control during landing, which resulted in a runway excursion and collision with a fence.

Factual narrative

The pilot stated to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector that he “may have been a bit overconfident in salvaging a poor approach” and landed long at a higher than normal airspeed. The airplane bounced, departed the left side of the runway, and struck a fence which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing. A detailed examination of the airplane revealed no preimpact mechanical anomaly, and that the braking system performed as designed when actuated by the foot pedals or the hand lever. The pilot stated to a Federal Aviation Administration inspector that he made a poor approach, but still elected to continue with the landing. He landed long at a higher-than-normal airspeed and the airplane bounced upon touchdown. The airplane subsequently departed the left side of the runway and struck a fence, which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies, and that the braking system performed as designed. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • C Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot - C
  • C Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained - C

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2010_ERA10CA303.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗