NYC92FA059 · Piper PA-32-301
Piper PA-32-301 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport (MFD) to 2I8 · Newark, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92FA059
- 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
- 3 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-32-301
- 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
- N4380T
- Operator
- James A. Mccauley · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport (MFD), Mansfield, OHTo 2I8 · Newark, OH
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, intentional
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Pilot in command › Self-induced pressure
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT MADE A FLT INTO KNOWN ICING CONDITIONS AFTER HE RECEIVED A WX BRIEF VIA DUAT. AREA AIRPORTS WERE REPORTING LOW CEILINGS, HOWEVER, THERE WERE NO WX REPORTING FACILITIES AT HIS DESTINATION. WITNESSES REPORTED A 200 FOOT CEILING AND 1 MILE VIS WITH FOG. HE MISSED ON HIS FLIGHT APCH AND AFTER THE SECOND APCH, HE WAS SEEN AND HEARD BY WITNESSES FLYING SOUTHEAST OF THE ARPT AT A LOW ALT. THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED AT 0915 AND THE PILOT HAD A 1000 APPOINTMENT IN THE TOWN. IN ADDITION, HE HAD AN APPOINTMENT AT 1300 BACK AT HIS OFFICE, WHICH WAS 50 ROAD MILES OR 20 AIR MINUTES AWAY. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT CERTIFIED FOR FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ICING CONDITIONS. THE PILOT HAD APPROXIMATELY 340 HOURS, ALL OBTAINED IN THE PRECEDING YEAR.
Probable cause
AN INADVERTENT STALL WITH INSUFFICIENT ALTITUDE FOR RECOVERY. AN ADDITIONAL CAUSE WAS THE PILOT'S SELF INDUCED PRESSURE TO COMPLETE THE FIGHT IN KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER, AND TO DEVIATE FROM THE PUBLISHED INSTRUMENT APPROACH PROCEDURE. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE LOW CLOUDS AND THE ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92FA059
- Event ID
- 20001211X14165
- Case number
- NYC92FA059
- 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: 67aebe102303c27d49df2306ba0a9f0fe342933404600af626a6d109a070a61d; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:22:06.035Z.