SEA95LA207 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From 43U to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA95LA207
- 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
- 0 · 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N8261N
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 43UTo 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT LOADED HIS AIRCRAFT TO WITHIN 50 POUNDS OF GROSS WEIGHT AND ATTEMPTED A SHORT-FIELD TAKEOFF PROCEDURE AT A DENSITY ALTITUDE OF APPROXIMATELY 8000 FEET. AFTER LIFT-OFF HE RETRACTED THE FLAPS FROM 25 DEGREES TO 10 DEGREES AND THE AIRCRAFT CLIMBED TO ABOUT 150 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. THE PILOT STATED THAT HE LOWERED THE NOSE TO ACCELERATE, BUT NOTED THAT HIS AIRSPEED HAD DECAYED ABOUT 15 MPH, AND THE STALL WARNING LIGHT WAS ON. HE LOWERED THE NOSE IN AN ATTEMPT TO REGAIN AIRSPEED, BUT WAS UNABLE TO REGAIN AIRSPEED OR RECOVER FROM AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT. HE WAS ABLE TO MANEUVER TO AVOID SOME OBSTACLES AND TERRAIN, BUT CRASHED IN A HOSPITAL PARKING LOT. THE PILOT BELIEVED THAT HE HAD BEEN SUBJECTED TO WIND SHEAR AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT IN COMMAND'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN AIRSPEED DURING CLIMBOUT. FACTORS INCLUDE WIND SHEAR AND HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA95LA207
- Event ID
- 20001207X04598
- Case number
- SEA95LA207
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-09-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b08027891643dc62c4c2188cca1dfc6a173770cb23613b7e3b00f1136baaba96; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:05:17.345Z.