FTW95FA226 · Piper PA-23-160
Piper PA-23-160 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Palestine Municipal Airport (PSN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95FA226
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-23-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N4187P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Palestine Municipal Airport (PSN)To not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR go-around
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Flightcrew › Airspeed(vmc), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PILOT STUDENT WAS RECEIVING DUAL INSTRUCTION IN PREPARATION FOR HIS MULTIENGINE CHECK RIDE. A WITNESS OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE APPROACHING RUNWAY 17 FLYING 'A LOT SLOWER THAN THEY NORMALLY DO AND . . . A LOT LOWER THAN USUAL.' ANOTHER WITNESS OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE FLYING ON AN EASTERLY HEADING NEAR THE MIDPOINT OF THE RUNWAY; HE REPORTED THAT IT WAS 'NOT MUCH HIGHER THAN OUR HANGAR IS TALL.' HE NEXT OBSERVED THAT THE AIRPLANE'S LEFT PROPELLER WAS NOT TURNING AND THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO 'YAW TO THE LEFT AND ROLL TO THE LEFT.' THE AIRPLANE IMPACTED THE GROUND ABOUT 1,500 FEET EAST OF THE RUNWAY. THE LANDING GEAR ON THIS AIRPLANE WAS EXTENDED AND RETRACTED BY HYDRAULIC PRESSURE GENERATED FROM ONE HYDRAULIC PUMP MOUNTED ON THE LEFT ENGINE. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, THE LEFT ENGINE WAS SHUTDOWN, THE LEFT PROPELLER WAS FEATHERED, AND THE GEAR WAS RETRACTED. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINES REVEALED NO ANOMALIES THAT COULD HAVE AFFECTED THEIR PERFORMANCE. THE 76-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR HAD FLOWN 73 DIFFERENT MAKE/MODEL OF AIRPLANES IN THE LAST 4 YEARS.
Probable cause
LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL DURING A GO-AROUND, DUE TO FAILURE OF THE FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR (CFI) TO ASSURE THAT THE MINIMUM CONTROL SPEED (VMC) WAS MAINTAINED. FACTORS RELATING TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: SHUTDOWN OF THE LEFT ENGINE, WHICH WOULD HAVE PREVENTED NORMAL GEAR EXTENSION, AND POSSIBLE HABIT INTERFERENCE BY THE CFI (DUE TO THE NUMBER OF AIRCRAFT THAT HE HAD RECENTLY FLOWN).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95FA226
- Event ID
- 20001207X03684
- Case number
- FTW95FA226
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b1c584260b748ccbb5b28b0f01e24e9aabdb39fb1ad04e8299b5258f58529e50; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:45:06.483Z.