BFO93FA001 · Piper J5A
Piper J5A · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93FA001
- 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
- 1 · 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 J5A
- Aircraft type
- Piper J5
- 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
- N37958
- Operator
- South Jersey Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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/spin
- 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 › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lumberton, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, THE AIRPLANE STALLED AND IMPACTED THE GROUND ABOUT 200 FEET BEYOND THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY. A WITNESS LOCATED AT THE AIRPORT OPERATOR'S BUILDING STATED, '150 FEET OFF EAST END OF RUNWAY 8, THE AIRCRAFT APPEARED TO PULL STRAIGHT UP, TURNED OVER TO THE LEFT, AND CAME STRAIGHT DOWN.' ANOTHER WITNESS, A CERTIFIED FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR, DRIVING IN A CAR NEAR THE ACCIDENT SITE STATED, 'THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN AN EXTREMELY NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE. THE AIRCRAFT APPEARED TO BE JUST ABOVE THE TREE LINE WHEN WE NOTICED THE WING DROP AND THE AIRCRAFT APPEARED TO ENTER A SPIN.' EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED NO AIRFRAME OR ENGINE ANOMALIES. THE ELEVATOR WAS TRIMMED TO THE FULL NOSE UP POSITION. AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT, THE PILOT, A CERTIFIED FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR, HAD ACCRUED ABOUT 617 FLIGHT HOURS, OF WHICH, 42 HOURS WERE IN THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE. THE PASSENGER IN THE BACK SEAT RECEIVED SERIOUS INJURIES AND DOES NOT REMEMBER THE ACCIDENT OR THE 24 HOURS PRECEDING THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHICH RESULTED IN AN INADVERTENT STALL AND AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT AT AN ALTITUDE NOT POSSIBLE FOR RECOVERY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93FA001
- Event ID
- 20001211X15991
- Case number
- BFO93FA001
- 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: 0f273a8eefdaffdb99c1f2656d04bbf707256228a16f0700a187ed0c75c79a99; retrieved 2026-09-21T00:50:14.439Z.