GAA17CA560 · Piper J5A UNDESIGNAT
Piper J5A UNDESIGNAT · Accident: loss of control on ground while standing
From Geneseo Airport (D52) to Geneseo Airport (D52)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA560
- 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 J5A UNDESIGNAT
- Aircraft type
- Piper J5
- 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
- N38633
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Geneseo Airport (D52), Geneseo, NYTo Geneseo Airport (D52), Geneseo, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 76 years (built 1941)
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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 on ground
- 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 handling/service
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, during a hand propeller start, the tailwheel-equipped airplane was secured by having the passenger stand in front of the horizontal stabilizer. He added that, as he rotated the propeller with the throttle "cracked," the engine started, but "it ran fast enough" to break the passenger's hold. As the airplane began to move forward, he grabbed onto the lower right-wing strut in an attempt to enter the airplane. Subsequently, he let go, the left main landing gear ran over his shoulder, and the airplane stuck maintenance equipment.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing and fuselage.
During a telephone conversation with the National Transportation Safety Board investigator-in-charge, the pilot reported that the throttle was "cracked a little more than it should have been." He added that he did not use wheel chocks before attempting the start.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly secure the airplane before a hand propeller start, which resulted in the airplane moving forward and colliding with maintenance equipment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA560
- Event ID
- 20170928X95419
- Case number
- GAA17CA560
- 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: 1f6c1b2914f71225b8f90a9539a787d381e67310ae56d6574c5b61f3d975d661; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:54:00.147Z.