GAA17CA040 · Piper PA 20S UNDESIGNAT
Piper PA 20S UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Manatee River, FL to Arcadia Municipal Airport (X06)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA040
- 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 20S UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-20
- 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
- N7329K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manatee River, FLTo Arcadia Municipal Airport (X06), Arcadia, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 66 years (built 1950)
- 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
- Landing
- 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 pilot reported that he ferried the straight float-equipped airplane to a grass airstrip for an annual inspection. During landing on the grass airstrip in crosswind conditions, the pilot reported that upon touchdown he applied back pressure to the controls and added power, but the airplane lifted and came back down quickly. The crosswind had drifted the airplane to the left and as the airplane began to slow on the runway the pilot felt the left float buckle. Subsequently, the left wing and nose impacted the ground and the airplane nosed over, coming to rest inverted.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings, the fuselage, and the rudder.
The pilot reported that there were no pre impact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported the wind as 060 degrees true at 10 nautical miles per hour, and not gusting. The pilot landed on runway 31.
The pilot reported that the grass had just been cut, and that it would have been better if there had been dew on the grass. He further reported that the crosswind drifted the airplane to the left causing the left float to collapse. He wrote that he should have returned home and come back the following day when there was dew on the grass and no headwind.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper pitch and power control during landing in a straight float-equipped airplane on grass in crosswind conditions, which resulted in a loss of directional control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA040
- Event ID
- 20161024X42222
- Case number
- GAA17CA040
- 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: 2b096ee1eb48bdf8a9a491a934654845e741f776a09ff22b9b8241eceac35314; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:46:05.858Z.