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ERA20CA300

2020-08-30 · Millington, Maryland, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed

Airport MD1

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s misidentification of a corn field for the destination airport’s runway, and a subsequent aerodynamic stall at low altitude while attempting to land.

Factual narrative

After a successful glider release, the pilot of the tow airplane was attempting to return to the turf runway at the departure airport. The pilot stated that he had difficulty locating the runway amongst the nearby corn fields and mistakenly aligned the airplane to land on a long swath of corn. During the landing attempt, and just as the pilot realized that the airplane was over corn and not the runway, the airplane “stalled” and impacted the ground. The airplane’s fuselage and wings were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

FAA avdata. C = Cause, F = Factor.

  • — Personnel issues-Psychological-Perception/orientation/illusion-Geographic disorient (lost)-Pilot
  • — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained
  • — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2020_ERA20CA300.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Search this event elsewhere

External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.

Related research

Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). All research papers