NYC85FA109 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM) to Hampton Airfield (7B3)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC85FA109
- 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
- 2 · 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-28-140
- 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
- N95043
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM), Lawrence, MATo Hampton Airfield (7B3), N.HAMPTON, NH
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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
- 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(vmc), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Go-around, attempted
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of North Hampton, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ON APRIL 20, 1985, A PIPER PA-28-140, FLOWN BY A STUDENT PLT, CRASHED DURING AN ATTEMPTED GO-AROUND AT NORTH HAMPTON, NH, WHILE ON A PLEASURE FLT. THE WX WAS CLEAR, WINDS WERE LIGHT AND VARIABLE WITH UNLIMITED VISIBILITY. THE TOUGH RWY IS 2050 FT LONG AND 300 FT WIDE AND IS SURROUNDED BY TREES. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE PLT FLEW DOWN THE RWY AND AT ABOUT TE MIDFIELD POINT, THE NOSE PITCHED UP AND THE PLT EXECUTED A TURN TO THE LEFT. DURING THE TURN TO THE LEFT, THE BANK INCREASED TO 90 DEGREES, THE NOSE DROPPED BELOW THE HORIZON, AND THE ACFT CRASHED INTO AN OPEN FIELD,. NONE OF THE WITNESSES HEARD AN INCREASE IN ENG RPM DURING THE GO-AROUND. THE PLT HAD APRX 30 HRS TOTAL FLYING TIME AND HAD NOT FLOWN INTO THIS AIRFIELD BEFORE. THE PLT HAD RECEIVED ALL OF HIS INSTRUCTION AT ANOTHER AIRFIELD LOCATED 20 MILES AWAY. THIS WAS THE PLT'S FIRST KNOWN ATTEMPT TO LAND AT ANOTHER ARPT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC85FA109
- Event ID
- 20001214X36298
- Case number
- NYC85FA109
- 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: d96a748ea4caa9ea42960aa5e32d8acc31f9e0f4edfe44c114a0b20f1c9b6930; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:03:41.896Z.