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Atlas / NTSB / WPR25LA178

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR25LA178

2025-04-04 Vancouver, Washington, United States Airport · VUO None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N9404N

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-28R-200

Year of manufacture

1969 · 56 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING I0360 SER (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

4 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19690708

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AD1019

Registrant of record

REGISTRATION PENDING

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

A failure of the brake system during landing due to a hydraulic fluid leak, which resulted in a runway excursion.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that during a test flight following an annual inspection, he landed normally, but the brakes faded almost immediately after he applied them. The pilot exited the runway, and the airplane collided with a fence, which resulted in substantial damage to the right wing. Postaccident examination of the brake system revealed a small leak at the brake line fitting at the left caliper and the brake fluid reservoir was 2/3 empty. 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).

  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Brake-Failure
  • Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Hydraulic fluid-Fluid level

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2025_WPR25LA178.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 ↗