FTW95LA220
1995-05-28 · STEPHENVILLE, Texas, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport SEP
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO EXECUTE A GO-AROUND. FACTORS WERE THE EXCESSIVE AIRSPEED AND HIGH GLIDEPATH DURING THE APPROACH.
Factual narrative
On May 28, 1995, at 1230 central daylight time, a Piper PA-28- 140, N9541W, collided with a fence during landing near Stephenville, Texas. The student pilot was not injured and the airplane sustained substantial damage. The airplane departed Arlington, Texas, at 1147 CDT for the solo cross country instructional flight conducted under Title 14 CFR Part 91. A VFR flight plan was filed and visual meteorological conditions prevailed. During a telephone interview, the pilot stated that his final approach to runway 14 at Clark Field Municipal Airport was "too high and too fast." He further stated that, after touching down about midfield, he realized the airplane was moving too fast to stop in the runway remaining and decided to exit the right side of the runway. The airplane crossed a taxiway and impacted a barbed wire fence severing the outboard third of the right wing. Runway 14 is 4,183 feet long. FOLLOWING AN APPROACH THE STUDENT PILOT CHARACTERIZED AS 'TOO HIGH AND TOO FAST', THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN AT MIDFIELD. WHEN THE PILOT REALIZED HE WOULD BE UNABLE TO STOP ON THE REMAINING RUNWAY, HE ELECTED TO EXIT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE 4,183 FOOT LONG RUNWAY. THE AIRPLANE CROSSED A TAXIWAY AND THEN IMPACTED A FENCE. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1995_FTW95LA220.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). All research papers
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World Go-Around Safety Forum Findings
Foundation Go-Around Safety Forum technical findings — examines why pilots fail to execute go-arounds when criteria are met (stabilized approach gate not met, energy state out of envelope, traffic con…
- Semantic Scholar 2022 · Article (Journal of Safety Research) Go-around accidents and general aviation safety.
INTRODUCTION Changes in General Aviation (GA) accident rates, specifically in the go-around phase, are examined by comparing the number of accidents, the proportion of fatal accidents, and the proport…
- Semantic Scholar 2021 · Article (Aerospace) Classification and Analysis of Go-Arounds in Commercial Aviation Using ADS-B Data
Go-arounds are a necessary aspect of commercial aviation and are conducted after a landing attempt has been aborted. It is necessary to conduct go-arounds in the safest possible manner, as go-arounds …
- NASA NTRS 2021 · Accepted Manuscript (Version with final changes) Go-Around Criteria Refinement for Transport Category Aircraft
Presently, airline pilots are trained to go around if, when lower than 500 ft above the ground, they are outside of a handful of parameters such as airspeed, position, and rate of descent.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper Validation of Proposed Go-Around Criteria Under Various Environmental Conditions
This paper evaluates the effects of environmental conditions on touchdown performance under varying approach states and validates proposed go-around criteria developed using data from a previously con…