NYC97LA060 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport (SFM) to Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport (SFM)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC97LA060
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N2914A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport (SFM)To Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport (SFM)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Raising of flaps, premature
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sanford, ME, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft went off the side of the runway and collided with a snow bank during an aborted takeoff. According to the pilot, 'my intention was to execute a touch-and-go landing. After touching down and upon applying full power for the subsequent takeoff, I noted that I had neglected to retract the flaps I had set for the landing (two notches or 25 degrees). I then retracted the flaps, and the aircraft began to settle, the controls becoming less responsive. I decided to abort the takeoff and brought the power setting to idle. The aircraft touched down once on the runway to the left of center, drifting leftward as it did so, became slightly airborne again, and finally came to rest upright in the snow a few feet off the runway.' The pilot reported no mechanical malfunction and he stated that the accident could have been prevented by 'using stop and go versus touch-and-go landing procedures.'
Probable cause
the pilot's premature raising of the flaps during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in a stall/mush. A factor relating to the accident was: the pilot's failure to maintain proper runway alignment after lift-off, which allowed the airplane to settle in snow beside the runway as it mushed.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC97LA060
- Event ID
- 20001208X07616
- Case number
- NYC97LA060
- 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: ed90794e139a29c9611954df6f4a5b51456a2c292ac4aeb7419d1048060f238d; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:13:35.134Z.