BFO90FA064 · Piper PA-28-200
Piper PA-28-200 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Gardner Municipal Airport (GDM) to Martin State Airport (MTN)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO90FA064
- 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-28-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N32975
- Operator
- Ronald Marien
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gardner Municipal Airport (GDM), Gardner, MATo Martin State Airport (MTN)
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT WAS INBOUND TO MTN WHEN ELECTRICAL POWER OCCURRED AND COMMUNICATION WITH ATC WAS LOST. THE PILOT PROCEEDED TO MTN, ENTERED THE TRAFFIC PATTERN, TO LAND ON RUNWAY 14. ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, THE ENGINE LOST POWER WHILE HE WAS ON BASE LEG AND THE AIRPLANE CRASHED LESS THAN A MILE FROM THE RUNWAY. A PAX SAID THE PILOT TURNED LEFT TO AVOID ANOTHER JUST BEFORE THE ENGINE LOST POWER. HE SAID DURING THE TURN THE AIRPLANE SHAKED. ATC PERSONNEL AT MTN SAID THEY FIRST NOTICED THE AIRPLANE WHEN IT WAS ON BASE LEG, BUT ANOTHER AIRPLANE HAD BEEN CLEARED TO LAND, WHOSE PILOT WAS THEN INSTRUCTED TO BREAK OFF THE APPROACH. ATC THEN SAW THE ACCIDENT AIRPLANE GO THROUGH THE FINAL APPROACH COURSE, TURN LEFT, AND DESCEND TO THE GROUND. THE EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THE ALTERNATOR BELT FAILED, ALTHOUGH IT WAS NOT DETERMINED IF THE FAILURE OCCURRED PRE OR POST IMPACT. THE ALTERNATOR WAS DAMAGED AND WAS NOT TESTED. THE ALTERNATOR WARNING CIRCUITRY FOR THE ANNUNCIATOR PANEL WAS FOUND DEFECTIVE, WHICH DISABLED THE WARNING. MECHANICAL EXAMINATION OF THE AIRFRAME AND ENGINE DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FAILED TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED WHICH RESULTED IN A STALL. CONTRIBUTING WAS THE LOSS OF POWER FOR UNDETERMINED REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO90FA064
- Event ID
- 20001212X23606
- Case number
- BFO90FA064
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 021654dec4782e2fcec7dcafdb8b903bb26bbb1a5614fe1b42165fec031c9f0e; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:39:46.821Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states "THE FLIGHT WAS INBOUND TO MTN" and the pilot entered the MTN traffic pattern to land on runway 14; the destination was not recorded.