BFO92LA021 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From 1B2 to Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92LA021
- 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-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N38781
- Operator
- Gary Mead
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1B2To Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Danbury, CT
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Edgartown, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE ROTATED THE AIRPLANE FOR TAKEOFF BETWEEN 50 AND 55 KNOTS. HE NOTICED IMMEDIATELY THAT THE AIRPLANE WAS DRIFTING TO THE RIGHT AND NOT CLIMBING VERY WELL. HE SAID HE LOOKED OUT OF THE SIDE WINDOW AND SAW THAT HE WAS GOING TO HIT SOME TREES, SO HE TURNED THE AIRPLANE LEFT AND PULLED BACK ON THE YOKE. HE STATED THAT THE AIRPLANE ROSE APPROXIMATELY 30 FEET IN ALTITUDE AND THEN STALLED. THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH A SHED SHEARING OFF A WING AND THEN HIT A FUEL PUMP SHERING OFF THE OTHER WING. POST ACCIDENT INVESTIGATIONS DETERMINED THAT THERE WERE NO ANOMALIES WITH THE AIRPLANE AND THE AIRPLANE WAS FULLY FUELED. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE WINDS WERE FROM 320 DEGREES AT 25 KNOTS AND THE GROSS WEIGHT OF THE AIRPLANE WAS 3,570 LBS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ATTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED, WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE CROSSWIND, THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE COMPENSATION FOR THE WIND AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN PROPER ALIGNMENT WITH THE RUNWAY, AND HIGH OBSTRUCTIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92LA021
- Event ID
- 20001211X13948
- Case number
- BFO92LA021
- 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: a4dd235d4ea073a164b539231f0525c8a87b99b3e2519848c661730f9dacf74a; retrieved 2026-09-21T23:22:01.317Z.