NYC08LA029 · Piper PA-25-235
Aerial Banners Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From North Perry Airport (HWO) to North Perry Airport (HWO)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC08LA029
- 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-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- 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
- N131AB
- Operator
- Aerial Banners
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From North Perry Airport (HWO), Hollywood, FLTo North Perry Airport (HWO), Hollywood, FL
- 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
- Maneuvering · turn to reverse direction
- 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/spin
- 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 › Aircraft control, 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 pilot of the Piper PA-25 completed the local banner-tow mission and successfully released the banner. While maneuvering for landing, the airplane stalled at low altitude. The airplane was substantially damaged when it impacted flat terrain on airport property and the certificated commercial pilot sustained serious injuries. The airplane was equipped with a stall warning system that consisted of a vane-activated switch on the wing and a light in the cockpit. Electrical continuity testing and x-ray examination of the switch revealed that the internal contacts were fused, which prevented the switch from functioning in accordance with the design. The stall warning light was not illuminated at impact based on an analysis conducted by the Safety Board's Materials Laboratory. Calibration testing of the airspeed indicator revealed that the indicator read approximately 8 mph high at speeds up through at least 90 mph. The pilot had approximately 450 total hours of flight experience and approximately 130 hours in the accident airplane. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and the reported winds were 9 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, resulting in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident were an inoperative stall warning system and an erroneous airspeed indicator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC08LA029
- Event ID
- 20080115X00050
- Case number
- NYC08LA029
- 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: 19e5d6efbcd958e8a9a681b64c03d4d03008c41a92dfabfa0b61de595ace9a3d; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:41:48.041Z.