ERA15LA257 · Piper PA28 151
Piper PA28 151 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From New River Valley Airport (PSK) to Twin County Airport (HLX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA257
- 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 PA28 151
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA28
- 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
- N43503
- Operator
- Kempfer, Roger L · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New River Valley Airport (PSK), Dublin, VATo Twin County Airport (HLX), Galax Hillsvill, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1974)
- 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 pattern final
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a cross-country personal flight and reported that the airplane was on the final approach leg of the traffic pattern when it impacted terrain short of the runway. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation; however, he could not recall what occurred just before or during the accident sequence. The pilot-rated passenger noted that the airplane was low during the final approach and that he put his hand on the pilot's hand to add power but that the airplane impacted the ground about that time.
Although the pilot indicated that he believed that the airplane might have descended due to a microburst, he noted that it was not raining at the time of the accident. Further, there was no evidence of any microburst activity within 10 miles of the accident site about the time of the accident and no indications of any outflow boundary or gust front.
An airplane performance study using GPS and reported wind data revealed that the pilot was slowing the airplane while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, and that, while turning onto the final approach leg of the traffic pattern, he continued slowing it while turning onto the base and final legs of the traffic pattern. While on the final approach leg of the traffic pattern, he allowed the airplane to slow to near the stall speed. It is likely that the airplane exceeded its critical angle-of-attack during the turn at low airspeed, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and the airplane's subsequent impact with terrain short of the runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while turning onto the final approach leg of the traffic pattern, which led to 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 ERA15LA257
- Event ID
- 20150703X91507
- Case number
- ERA15LA257
- 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: 1a824a334925fd512e5dfde2bc4ef3231b16f2291bed94af0ef6b399da8fe5aa; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:29:18.994Z.