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Atlas / NTSB / ERA26LA015

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA26LA015

2025-10-10 New Milford, Connecticut, United States Airport · 11N None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N28170

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

SOCATA TB 10

Year of manufacture

1991 · 34 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING 0-360-A1D (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

5 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19901213

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A2D518

Registrant of record

STRACAR MIRO

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s decision to depart from an unlit turf runway at night, which resulted in a loss of directional control, and subsequent runway excursion.

Factual narrative

The pilot was attempting to take off from an unlit turf runway about 1 hour after the end of civil twilight. The pilot stated that during the takeoff roll, he was unable to recognize the runway’s side boundaries and the airplane veered left and exited the runway. The airplane struck trees and fencing resulting in substantial damage to both wings and the fuselage. The pilot stated that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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).

  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Light condition-Dark-Decision related to condition
  • Environmental issues-Operating environment-Airport facilities/design-Airport lighting-Decision related to condition

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_ERA26LA015.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 ↗