FTW97LA089 · Piper PA-38-112
Southwind Aviation Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport (BRO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA089
- 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N2422N
- Operator
- Southwind Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport (BRO)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
- 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
- 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 › Go-around, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot, aware of the displaced (2,600 feet) threshold, was cleared for landing on runway 17. During the final approach with full flaps (37 degrees), the airplane started 'dropping' from approximately 100 feet AGL and the pilot added 1/2 throttle; however, the added power 'did not stop the drop.' Upon making a go-around decision, the pilot added full power and retracted the flaps to 21 degrees. Subsequently, the left wing of the airplane hit the dirt and the airplane spun around 150 degrees before coming to rest in the grass at the side of the runway. The operator reported that the student had received instruction on all the solo requirements including emergency procedures and go-around procedures. The student stated that he had not done a go-around with an instructor; however, during a previous solo flight, he had made a go-around from 400 feet AGL during an approach for runway 31 and this was his first attempted go-around from a low altitude. The Pilot/Operator Report, stated that 'while attempting a go-around the aircraft stalled [with] the left wing impacting the ground.' Winds varied from 160 degrees to 170 degrees at 13 knots with gust to 22 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed go-around and subsequent inadvertent stall. A factor was the gusty winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA089
- Event ID
- 20001208X07293
- Case number
- FTW97LA089
- 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: 7a0a8979437d654c1d262f8ab6ef8e1e30239b24caebc8256c3ec233a8ba1f9a; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:25:54.143Z.