GAA18CA092 · Piper PA28 161
North Star Aviation Piper PA28 161 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Mankato Regional Airport (MKT) to Mankato Regional Airport (MKT)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA092
- 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 PA28 161
- 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
- N284MK
- Operator
- North Star Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mankato Regional Airport (MKT), Mankato, MNTo Mankato Regional Airport (MKT), Mankato, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 2001)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot reported that, during landing, the airplane bounced hard. She added power to go around, and as the airplane became airborne, it began to drift to the left. The airplane aerodynamically stalled, impacted terrain, and collided with a golf cart adjacent to the runway, which was occupied by the student pilot's flight instructor.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and right wing.
The chief pilot of the flight school reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
A review of recorded data from the automated weather observation station located on the airport revealed that, about 4 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 080° at 6 knots. The airplane landed on runway 33.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in a hard, bounced landing and subsequent go-around during which the student exceeded 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 GAA18CA092
- Event ID
- 20171220X63544
- Case number
- GAA18CA092
- 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: 06041bb8e75187973a09831c14ffcf7d309e84b9ed08d115f540228604b776da; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:12:49.630Z.