NYC86LA020 · Piper PA-15
Piper PA-15 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC86LA020
- 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-15
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-15
- 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
- N4499H
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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
- Horizontal stabilizer attachment › Fatigue
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF CONTROL DURING AN APCH TO THE PLT'S PVT AIRSTRIP. AFTER A PLEASURE FLT OF ONE-HALF HOUR, WITH NO REPORTED PROBLEMS THE ACFT RETURNED TO THE ARPT. ON ABOUT A ONE-HALF MILE FINAL, THE ACFT ENTERED A STEEP LEFT TURN AT ABOUT A 60 DEGREE BANK. THE PLT TRIED TO CORRECT WITH FULL RIGHT AILERON AND RIGHT RUDDER. REDUCING THE BANK ANGLE TO ABOUT 15 DEGREES. THE PLT ELECTED TO LAND ON A ROAD. THE LEFT WING COLLIDED WITH A GUARD RAIL, SPINNING THE ACFT INTO A DITCH. THE PLT REPORTED, AFTER THE ACCIDENT, THAT THE RIGHT LOWER TAIL BRACE WIRE ATTACH FITTING, PIPER P/N 10075-04, HAD FAILED. HE ALSO REPORTED A PRE-EXISTING CRACK WAS FOUND IN THE FITTING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC86LA020
- Event ID
- 20001214X38141
- Case number
- NYC86LA020
- 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: 3d63dc1f15ceed7bd01d7795cc669432052e42f5433287f0aa55a6cb129b3ef6; retrieved 2026-09-23T15:26:14.695Z.