GAA16CA501 · Piper PA28R 180
Indian Hills Community College Piper PA28R 180 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Ottumwa Regional Airport (OTM) to Ottumwa Regional Airport (OTM)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA501
- 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 PA28R 180
- 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
- N3803T
- Operator
- Indian Hills Community College
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ottumwa Regional Airport (OTM), Ottumwa, IATo Ottumwa Regional Airport (OTM), Ottumwa, IA
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1967)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that the pilot receiving instruction was demonstrating a power-off 180 degree landing. He further reported that as the airplane entered a close-in base to final approach, the airspeed slowed and the stall warning light started to flicker. The flight instructor reported that he stated to the pilot flying, "nose down, nose down," and waited for him to correct. Subsequently, the flight instructor took the flight controls, but as he did so, the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall and touched down hard on the runway. During the landing roll, the flight instructor reported that he lost rudder authority but was able to use differential braking to maintain directional control and taxi off the runway.
The right wing sustained substantial damage.
The flight instructor reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot receiving instruction's failure to maintain adequate airspeed and his exceedance of the airplane's critical angle-of-attack during a simulated engine failure and landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA501
- Event ID
- 20160922X43155
- Case number
- GAA16CA501
- 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: 59e0896be53e6ce933e86556ea649d830a8aadc656f5f7173f983385249ca2f5; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:18:01.329Z.