NYC92LA114 · Piper PA-38-112
Dawn Aviation Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Wilmington Airport (ILG)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92LA114
- 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
- N2326K
- Operator
- Dawn Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Wilmington Airport (ILG), Wilmington, DE
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not attained
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT HAD NOT FLOWN FOR OVER 30 MONTHS. HE RECEIVED 1.9 HOURS OF DUAL INSTRUCTION THE MONTH PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE DUAL INSTRUCTION WAS NOT CONSIDERED A BIENNIAL FLIGHT REVIEW. THE TRAINING WAS A CHECK OUT IN AN AIRPLANE NEW TO THE PILOT, CONDUCTED AT A MAJOR AIRPORT WITH LONG RUNWAYS. THIS DEPARTURE WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST TAKEOFF ON A SHORT RUNWAY WITH OBSTACLES. TAKEOFF POWER WAS APPLIED WHILE THE AIRPLANE ACCELERATED. AFTER LIFTOFF, THE PILOT ESTABLISHED THE AIRPLANE, WHICH WAS 40 POUNDS OVER THE MAXIMUM GROSS WEIGHT, IN A CLIMB ATTITUDE WHICH ALLOWED THE AIRSPEED TO BLEED OFF FROM THE DESIRED 55 KNOTS, TO 40 KNOTS. THE AIRPLANE STALLED, STRUCK TREES AND IMPACTED THE GROUND.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN THE PROPER CLIMB ATTITUDE WHICH RESULTED IN AN AERODYNAMIC STALL. FACTORS IN THIS ACCIDENT WERE: THE AIRPLANE WEIGHT AND BALANCE WAS EXCEEDED, THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL EXPERIENCE IN THE TYPE OF AIRPLANE, AND HIS LACK OF RECENT TOTAL EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92LA114
- Event ID
- 20001211X14973
- Case number
- NYC92LA114
- 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: 8ec19419197af4818d6c3cd418546170c99792b850657d72a822b947ecd10303; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:55:03.927Z.