ERA17LA227 · Piper PA28 180
Horizon Aviation Piper PA28 180 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (SIG) to Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (SIG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA17LA227
- 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
- 0
- 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 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
- N9427J
- Operator
- Horizon Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (SIG), San Juan, PRTo Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport (SIG), San Juan, PR
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that, before the local, personal flight, the airplane was fueled and that he performed a preflight inspection and an engine run-up with no issues noted. The takeoff was normal; however, during the initial climb, about 250 ft above ground level, the engine started to run roughly and lose power. The engine did not respond to throttle inputs. The pilot contacted the air traffic control tower and stated that he intended to return to the departure airport to land. He did not recall the remainder of the accident sequence. A passenger, who was also a certificated pilot, stated that, as the pilot was turning the airplane left back to the airport, he saw that the airspeed was decreasing and that the stall warning light was flashing. Subsequently, the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall and spun into a canal. A review of a video taken by a witness corroborated the passenger's account.
Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Sound spectrum analysis of onboard video revealed that the engine rpm decreased by about 300 and then increased by about 300 twice but then remained steady near full power for about 6 seconds before impact. The reason for the rpm changes could not be determined.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power during initial climb for reasons that could not be determined and the pilot's subsequent exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA17LA227
- Event ID
- 20170704X72958
- Case number
- ERA17LA227
- 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: 2d805c909baa86327d2c62ebb24fe9f61be15483a3843f072764a77e60175f50; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:29:58.921Z.