SEA06LA005 · Piper PA-38-112
Piper PA-38-112 · Accident: loss of engine power on approach
From Sportsman Airpark (2S6) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA06LA005
- 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
- N23887
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sportsman Airpark (2S6), Newberg, ORTo 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 downwind
- 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 engine power
- 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(cfi) › Airspeed, not 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 flight instructor reported that he and the student picked the day to practice crosswind landings. The flight instructor recalled a successful run up and departure. The next thing the flight instructor recalled was the student telling him to "take the airplane." The instructor does not recall anything after that. The student pilot reported that the flight stayed in the traffic pattern. One successful touch-and-go was accomplished followed by a go-around. The student pilot stated that during the climb out after the go-around, he turned the aircraft to cross-wind. During the turn toward downwind, the engine lost power. The student stated that he kept control of the airplane while the instructor went through a trouble shoot/restart sequence. The student then turned the airplane over to the flight instructor. The student does not recall anything after that point. Witnesses reported that the aircraft had been doing touch-and-go landings on runway 17. The aircraft was observed to pass over a building near the runway, pitch up and make a hard banking turn to the left before stalling and colliding with the building's parking lot. Another witness stated that after the accident, he heard the right seat occupant state, "sorry I just lost it." The aircraft collided with several objects before coming to rest about 55 yards from the initial ground impact. The nearest weather reporting facility was reporting a wind from 150 degrees at 19 knots at the time of the accident. No mechanical failure or malfunction was noted during the post-accident airframe and engine examination. Damage signatures found on the airplane's propeller were consistent with the engine producing power at the time of impact.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to maintain airspeed while on approach for landing resulting in an inadvertent stall. Wind gusts, trees and an undetermined loss of engine power were factors.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA06LA005
- Event ID
- 20051018X01677
- Case number
- SEA06LA005
- 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, coordinates. 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: 8f2f7801a1f9cd2001cf044cd2b41154a8b78060562b145769e0319d08794c79; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:02:16.379Z.