NYC98FA009 · Piper PA-28R-180
Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 2N8 · Marlboro, NJ to Lebanon Municipal Airport (LEB)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98FA009
- 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
- 4 · 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-28R-180
- 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
- N3981T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2N8 · Marlboro, NJTo Lebanon Municipal Airport (LEB), Lebanon, NH
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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
- Company/operator management › Maintenance, inadequate
- Fuel system, injector › Blocked(partial)
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Diverted attention
- Pilot in command › Gear retraction, not possible
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Morganville, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot took off in the vicinity of the airplane's maximum gross weight and cleared 50 foot high trees 75 feet beyond the end of the runway. The airplane completed a right 180 degree turn, descended, and collided with trees with the retractable landing gear still extended. Maintenance records revealed that the number 4 cylinder had been removed due to low compression 295 hours before the accident to replace an exhaust valve, and again 76 hours before the accident due to low compression to reface the valves. Examination of the engine revealed the number 4 cylinder fuel injector nozzle was partially obstructed. An annual inspection was performed on the airplane between the two removals of the number 4 cylinder, by the maintenance facility performing the engine maintenance. The landing gear had been written up by pilots on five occasions in the 3 months prior to the accident, for not retracting after takeoff, and the airplane continued to be flown with the write-ups. The last write-up occurred 7 days prior to the accident and remained open. Maintenance was performed on the landing gear system after the last write-up and not documented in the airplane's logbooks.
Probable cause
The inadequate maintenance by the flying club and maintenance facility, which resulted in a takeoff with a partially blocked fuel injector nozzle and the failure of the landing gear to retract after takeoff. This resulted in the pilot's diverted attention and the subsequent stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98FA009
- Event ID
- 20001208X09090
- Case number
- NYC98FA009
- 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: 94c772cb3d518a938da6585fb12cbb2e64145004b1c6094eb6fdcdaa4a5bed2d; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:47:51.212Z.