ERA13FA259 · Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20-C1
Best-in-Flight Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20-C1 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Linden Airport (LDJ) to Linden Airport (LDJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13FA259
- 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
- 1 · 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
Diamond Aircraft IND Inc DA 20-C1
- Aircraft type
- Diamond DA-20
- 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
- N176MA
- Operator
- Best-in-Flight
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Linden Airport (LDJ), Linden, NJTo Linden Airport (LDJ), Linden, NJ
- Aircraft age
- About 8 years (built 2005)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was conducting an introductory flight for the passenger. Witnesses reported observing the airplane lift off about two-thirds down the 4,140-ft-long, asphalt runway and then struggle to gain altitude. The passenger reported that, after takeoff, the flight instructor told him that the engine was not "making power." The flight instructor declared an emergency and was returning to the departure airport when the airplane stalled and impacted the ground about 1/2 mile northwest of the airport. Postaccident examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any discrepancies that would have precluded normal operation.
Weight and balance calculations revealed that the airplane was likely at or above its maximum allowable takeoff weight during the accident flight. Further, the temperature about the time of the accident was about 94 degrees F, and the estimated density altitude at the airport was about 2,200 ft mean sea level. Based on these conditions, if the engine had been operating perfectly, its available power production would have been between about 81 and 85 percent. Therefore, it is likely that these conditions, in combination with the airplane being near or slightly above its maximum allowable weight, reduced the airplane's climb performance and that, while attempting to return to the airport, the pilot failed to maintain adequate airspeed and flew the airplane beyond its critical angle-of-attack, which led to an aerodynamic stall.
The flight instructor was ejected from the airplane during the impact after the right seatbelt quick release hook separated from its fuselage anchor. Examination of the quick release hook revealed that it was bent out of the plane of the attachment and twisted. In addition, the hook closure latch was also distorted and deformed. The combined deformations of the hook and latch allowed the hook to disengage. Although it is possible that the deformation occurred during the accident impact, it is more likely that preexisting deformation was present. The airplane had been operated for about 38 hours since its most recent 100-hour/annual inspection, which was performed about 3 weeks before the accident. A condition inspection of the restraint system was required to be performed during this inspection; however, no record was found indicating whether the condition inspection was performed.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate preflight planning and his decision to take off with the airplane at a high gross weight in high temperature conditions that degraded the engine’s available power and his subsequent failure to maintain airspeed while attempting to return to the departure airport, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle-of-attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13FA259
- Event ID
- 20130531X45544
- Case number
- ERA13FA259
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 042c913fd19aeecd78100af647d7b7accd1fd9355b09b13f0620596476281540; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:57:38.506Z.