MIA00LA219 · Piper PA-32-300
Piper PA-32-300 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Warren Field (OCW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA219
- 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-32-300
- 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
- N2947A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren Field (OCW)To 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated all cowling fasteners were secure during his preflight. After takeoff, the right side of the top cowling came 'straight up.' He turned to land on another runway and was 'trying to maintain enough [airspeed] to stay in the air, but not enough to tear off the cowling.' He lowered one notch of flaps and later reported, 'I ran out of lift.' The airplane landed hard off the intended runway then slid onto it; the top cowling separated on impact. He further stated the raised cowling created drag but did not interfere with his visibility; he did not apply full power to reduce the effects of the increase drag. He stated, 'I should have added more power', there was no problem with the engine. The lower half of the right forward side fastener was separated; but was found, and the wing fastener of the right aft side fastener was separated. Additionally, the attach structure of the right cowl pin was separated from the top cowling but was recovered from the accident site. The right cowl pin and pin bushing were worn but the IA indicated the wear was 'normal.' The top cowling is secured by 6 fasteners and 2 pins that attach to the top cowling and extend through a bushing that is affixed to the bottom cowling.
Probable cause
The inadvertent stall by the pilot-in-command while returning for a precautionary landing. Contributing to the accident was the loose engine cowling.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA219
- Event ID
- 20001212X21548
- Case number
- MIA00LA219
- 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: 66a6d49ee27ec5b707cb846b4fec10cb9186d97b16c91b4e655f471f54bbe29d; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:09:32.458Z.