ERA14LA285 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Northeast Kingdom International Airport (EFK) to Northeast Kingdom International Airport (EFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA285
- 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-28-140
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N5169T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Northeast Kingdom International Airport (EFK), Newport, VTTo Northeast Kingdom International Airport (EFK), Newport, VT
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1972)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aerodynamic 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 was returning to his home airport after a local flight that lasted about 2 hours. On his first attempted landing, the pilot conducted a go-around. The pilot said that he was "high and fast" on the second attempt, even though the runway was equipped with a 2-light precision approach path indicator which would have given the pilot guidance to touch down with the first one-third of the runway. The airplane touched down about 3,000 feet down the 3,998-foot runway. The pilot then applied full power to abort the landing. After lifting off, the airplane pitched up, and, according to the pilot, the engine failed. About 200 feet above ground level, the airplane banked left and settled back toward the ground; it then impacted the ground and slid to a stop about 850 feet off the end of the runway. Immediately after the accident, the pilot exited the wreckage and was observed leaving the airport.
A postaccident examination and test run of the engine revealed no evidence of any anomalies that would have precluded normal engine operation. According to a witness, on the morning of the accident, she observed the pilot consume 12 to 16 alcoholic beverages between 0745 and 1230 when the pilot left to meet his passenger for the flight. After the accident, the Vermont State Police made contact with the pilot at his residence, where he refused a breathalyzer test. Given the airplane's performance during and after the pitch up, and the absence of any indications of an engine anomaly, the airplane likely entered an aerodynamic stall; the pilot's failure to adequately maintain airspeed and pitch control after the aborted landing, which resulted in the stall, was likely related to his consumption of alcohol.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during an aborted landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and collision with the ground. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's alcohol impairment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA285
- Event ID
- 20140610X05432
- Case number
- ERA14LA285
- 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: 27272316895e558cd5c8f03742aea9e730af1455a05d9bd81e1e4f761369dde8; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:47:13.923Z.