CEN16FA261 · Piper PA 32R-300
Piper PA 32R-300 · Accident during takeoff
From West Houston Airport (IWS) to Gillespie County Airport (T82)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16FA261
- 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
- 4 · 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 32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N32KK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, TXTo Gillespie County Airport (T82), Fredericksburg, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot was departing on a cross-country flight in the airplane when the forward baggage compartment door opened shortly before the airplane rotated for liftoff near midfield. The pilot continued the takeoff on runway heading to about 100 ft above ground level before entering a left turn. The airplane continued to turn left until it was on a downwind heading, and then it entered an aerodynamic stall/spin and descended nose-down into terrain. Flight track data revealed that the airplane's ground speed decreased from 84 knots to 1 knot during the final 4 seconds of the flight, consistent with the airplane entering an aerodynamic stall/spin. None of the witnesses reported hearing any engine anomalies during the accident flight.
The postaccident investigation determined that the forward baggage compartment door separated during the airplane's impact with terrain. The door latch mechanism was found unlatched, and its corresponding key-lock assembly was unlocked. No anomalies were found with the forward baggage door latch mechanism, key-lock, or door frame latch catch/receptacle that would have precluded the door from being properly secured before the flight. Based on the witness descriptions and the physical evidence, it is likely that the pilot failed to ensure that the forward baggage compartment door was closed, latched, and properly secured during his preflight inspection. The pilot likely became distracted by the open baggage door and, as a result, did not maintain adequate airspeed while on the downwind leg, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed after becoming distracted by the open baggage door while operating in the airport traffic pattern, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and experiencing an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to ensure that the forward baggage compartment door was closed, latched, and properly secured during his preflight inspection.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16FA261
- Event ID
- 20160708X85810
- Case number
- CEN16FA261
- 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: 57256b2f6c7b64f1fb92e4840af32ac8ff35755d765482a1a5179a74ab7cd5dd; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:53:34.022Z.