NYC96FA073 · Piper PA-23-250
Piper PA-23-250 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From North Central West Virginia Airport (CKB) to Hagerstown Regional Richard A Henson Field (HGR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96FA073
- 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
- 1 · 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-23-250
- 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
- N222WR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Central West Virginia Airport (CKB), Clarksburg, WVTo Hagerstown Regional Richard A Henson Field (HGR), Hagerstown, MD
- 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 pattern downwind
- 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
- Flt control syst, stabilator trim › Incorrect
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Earlier on the day of the accident, the airplane was being operated on the ground, when the main landing gear was inadvertently retracted. The airplane settled on its tail; however, the propellers did not touch the ground. The engines were shut down, and the occupants deplaned. The airplane was raised, and the gear was extended. The airplane was inspected, which included removal of the side and rear panels in the vicinity of the stabilator and rudder. A ferry permit was issued for flight to another airport where repairs could be made, with the restriction that the landing gear remain extended. The pilot departed on the flight, and after takeoff, he requested to return for a landing with no reason given. The airplane was observed to turn crosswind and then downwind, where it subsequently descended in a wings level attitude below the level of surrounding terrain, after which black smoke was observed. Impact occurred on the side of a hill, and debris was strewn 267 feet. Examination of the propellers and engines did not disclose evidence of a mechanical malfunction. There was no evidence of a jam in the rudder or elevator flight controls. The rudder trim and manual elevator trim were collocated. In addition, the airplane was equipped with an electric elevator trim. The rudder trim was found in neutral, and the elevator trim was found full nose down. The forward portion of the cockpit was crushed and no evidence of a pre-existing failure was found.
Probable cause
The pilot's inablility to maintain aircraft control due to a full nose down trim condition, which resulted in a loss of control and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96FA073
- Event ID
- 20001208X05467
- Case number
- NYC96FA073
- 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: a903f1eab563f56b6dd236f3d721854b0f757d6540ce84b12e538406835a159d; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:24:45.542Z.