ERA15FA109 · Piper PA-23
Tailwheels Etc Piper PA-23 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL) to Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15FA109
- 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
- 2 · 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-23
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-23
- 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
- N465JA
- Operator
- Tailwheels Etc
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, FLTo Lakeland Linder International Airport (LAL), Lakeland, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 58 years (built 1957)
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was the seventh lesson for the multiengine student, which likely included a simulated engine failure of the right engine usually performed over or near the destination airport. After takeoff, the flight proceeded north; radar returns were consistent with airwork. The airplane then turned and began flying toward the destination airport at 3,600 ft mean sea level and 105 mph.
A witness heard a "pop" sound, and another witness heard an unusual engine sound; these might be consistent with a quick reduction in power on one engine, and, based on radar data, the airplane began to slow about that time, consistent with reduced power from one engine. The airplane then began a right turn, pitched nose down, descended into a building, and was nearly consumed by a postcrash fire. Although the final descent was captured by a security video, the low-resolution image precluded a determination of the state of the airplane at that time.
No structure associated with the aft portion of the fuselage was identified in the wreckage. Examination of sections of the fractured structure revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination of the fractured left rudder cable revealed extensive postaccident heat damage to the fracture surface that precluded determination of the fracture mode. Examination of the engines and propellers revealed no evidence of preimpact failures or malfunctions; neither propeller was in the feathered position.
The rudder with attached trim tab and a flight bag separated from the airplane during the descent came to rest outside the impact area. The separated rudder exhibited evidence of overtravel in both directions that is consistent with loss of cable tension; the reason for the loss of cable tension could not be determined. It also could not be determined how the flight bag became separated from the wreckage.
Discrepancies previously noted by Federal Aviation Administration personnel during a ramp inspection of the accident airplane had been repaired before the accident flight. Further, the pilot who flew the accident airplane the day before reported no discrepancies during that flight.
Although the toxicological finding in specimens of the pilot-rated student were positive for ethanol, it is likely that it was the result of postmortem production.
Probable cause
An in-flight loss of control for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident investigation; the loss of control likely occurred during a simulated loss of power in the right engine during an instructional flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15FA109
- Event ID
- 20150122X11026
- Case number
- ERA15FA109
- 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: 4cfb46152eafc763e0ff7dbbb9b5b46bcd08f1d721318b1caaf28bc94565110c; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:31:23.036Z.