CEN14FA230 · Piper PA 25-235
Piper PA 25-235 · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Platte Valley Airpark (18V) to Platte Valley Airpark (18V)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's fatalities. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14FA230
- 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 Possible conflict
- 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
- N4519Y
- Operator
- Drag 'N' Fly Banners
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Platte Valley Airpark (18V), Hudson, COTo Platte Valley Airpark (18V), Hudson, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1966)
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the purpose of the banner-tow flight was to tow an advertisement billboard over a ballpark. He stated that, despite the engine operating normally, the airplane had little to no climb performance as he flew southbound toward the ballpark; therefore, he decided to make a 180-degree turn and return to the departure airport. He released the banner after the airplane developed an excessive descent rate during the turn. The pilot reported that he was unable to recover sufficient airspeed after releasing the banner and that the airplane encountered an aerodynamic stall/spin at a low altitude. The airplane then descended, inverted, into a house where a postimpact fire ensued. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. At the time of the accident, the low-level surface winds were from the south between 5 and 10 knots with gusts reaching 20 to 30 knots.
A review of radar track data confirmed that the accident airplane flew over a congested area at altitudes below 1,000 ft above ground level (agl). The final portion of the accident flight included an S-turn maneuver below 500 ft agl. According to radar data, during the S-turn, the airplane flew within 1,000 ft laterally and 200 ft vertically of the pilot's personal residence. Additionally, radar data revealed that the pilot made a tight 360-degree turn near his residence, between 600 and 700 ft agl, during another recent banner-tow flight. Based on the available radar evidence, the pilot, on at least two occasions, flew below the minimum safe altitude required by federal regulation 91.119(b), which prohibited operating an airplane, over a congested area, at an altitude below 1,000 ft above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 ft.
The pilot's intentional flight below the required minimum safe altitude likely limited his ability to recover from a potential loss of airspeed due to a gusting wind condition during the banner-tow flight. Additionally, his delayed decision to release the banner allowed the airplane to exceed its critical angle-of-attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin from which he was unable to recover.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to operate the banner-tow flight below the minimum safe altitude specified by federal regulation, which likely limited his ability to recover from a potential loss of airspeed due to a gusting wind condition. Also causal was the pilot’s delayed decision to release the banner, which allowed the airplane to exceed its critical angle-of-attack and resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin from which he was unable to recover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14FA230
- Event ID
- 20140505X11439
- Case number
- CEN14FA230
- 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, 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: 273956765f5fdf7fe4fe8e40137b1037106b1a8c924793c3da2917bac178f72d; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:34:34.340Z.