ERA14CA438 · Piper PA 28-161
Danic Electric Piper PA 28-161 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR) to Block Island State Airport (BID)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA438
- 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 28-161
- 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
- N2149F
- Operator
- Danic Electric
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Danbury Municipal Airport (DXR), Danbury, CTTo Block Island State Airport (BID), Block Island, RI
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1978)
- 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 go-around
- 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
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Task performance
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 reported that the airplane was on final approach for landing when he observed that another airplane on the runway was not exiting the runway as quickly as he expected. With the end of the runway approaching, the pilot elected to abort the landing. During the subsequent attempted go-around, the airplane encountered an aerodynamic stall and impacted trees, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage, wings, rudder, and horizontal stabilator. The pilot reported no mechanical anomalies, and a Federal Aviation Administration inspector confirmed control continuity from the cockpit to all flight control surfaces during postaccident examination.
Probable cause
A loss of control during the attempted go-around, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA438
- Event ID
- 20140915X11456
- Case number
- ERA14CA438
- 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: 40ee2a3433a5c2d8ef0643deb905647b73020e53cbd3efe6c988f3b44c76aa41; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:45:25.078Z.