NYC91FA235 · Piper PA38-112
Castle Aviation Piper PA38-112 · Accident: forced landing en route
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91FA235
- 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 PA38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA38
- 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
- N9302T
- Operator
- Castle Aviation
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Forced landing
- 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
- Fuel exhaustion; 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS FLYING IN THE AIRPORT TRAFFIC PATTERN DOING TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS FOR ABOUT 1.2 HOURS. SHORTLY AFTER TAKE OFF FROM RUNWAY 07, THE AIRPLANE WAS SEEN BY SEVERAL WITNESSES AT A LOW ALTITUDE. THE WITNESSES SAID THE ENGINE LOST POWER AND THE AIRPLANE MADE A LEFT TURN BACK TOWARDS THE AIRPORT, THEN WENT INTO A NOSE LOW ATTITUDE BEFORE IT IMPACTED THE GROUND. EXAMINATION OF THE WRECKAGE AT THE ACCIDENT SITE REVEALED THAT THERE WAS NO FUEL FOUND IN EITHER FUEL TANK. BOTH FUEL TANKS WERE INTACT. THE PILOT WAS OBSERVED DOING A PREFLIGHT INSPECTION, TO INCLUDE LOOKING IN BOTH FUEL TANKS AND DRAINING FUEL FROM EACH TANK. THE PILOT WAS OFFERED AND DECLINED FUEL SERVICING. RECORDS INDICATED THAT WHEN THE PILOT STARTED HIS FLIGHT, THE AIRPLANE HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN FLOWN 3.1 HOURS SINCE THE LAST REFUELED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT LOST CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE AND INADVERTENTLY STALLED AND SPUN THE AIRPLANE AT TOO LOW AN ALTITUDE TO ALLOW RECOVERY. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE; THE PILOT'S IMPROPER PREFLIGHT AND PLANNING, WHICH RESULTED IN FUEL EXHAUSTION, A LOSS OF ENGINE POWER, A FORCED LANDING, AN IMPROPER PROCEDURE BY TURNING BACK TO THE AIRPORT, AND THE PILOT'S LACK OF TOTAL FLIGHT EXPERIENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91FA235
- Event ID
- 20001212X18159
- Case number
- NYC91FA235
- 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: 666838193e3aa5b9264e2bb25b81a3fffa1379393319bd7ca7f9296c629c08b1; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:35:09.404Z.