LAX02LA170 · Piper PA-38-112
Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Kingman Airport (IGM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA170
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-38-112
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-38
- 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
- N4326E
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kingman Airport (IGM), Kingman, AZTo 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 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/mush
- 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(cfi) › Aircraft weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane settled into the ground during a go-around from a simulated emergency landing. The certified flight instructor (CFI) was teaching the student an abbreviated approach to landing where the turn from base to final is rounded instead of the traditional square pattern. The CFI said that about 150 feet agl as they were tuning to final he observed they were overshooting the centerline of the runway, and had an excessive sink rate. The CFI took control of the airplane and applied full power; however, the descent continued. The airplane "dropped out of the sky, and pancaked onto the ground" next to the runway. The airplane weight was 180 pounds over gross at takeoff, and about 92 pounds over gross at the time of the accident. The density altitude was approximately 5,300 feet. The airplane landed in an easterly direction; winds at the time of the accident were from the south-southwest at 20 knots.
Probable cause
the CFI's failure to obtain/maintain an adequate airspeed during an attempted go-around, which resulted in a stall/mush condition. The high density altitude, tailwind, inadequate supervision, and overgross weight condition were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA170
- Event ID
- 20020613X00877
- Case number
- LAX02LA170
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-05-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5c58e343935f8e28e7d6dd44e7f5a6766e8c83b6d3e9bbbf4ffd13427e420b53; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:54:05.488Z.