CEN19FA035 · Piper PA 30
Piper PA 30 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Marion Municipal Airport (MZZ) to Marion Municipal Airport (MZZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA035
- 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
- 1 · 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 30
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-30
- 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
- N7751Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marion Municipal Airport (MZZ), Marion, INTo Marion Municipal Airport (MZZ), Marion, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 53 years (built 1965)
- 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
- Destroyed
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 airline transport pilot, who was also an airframe and powerplant mechanic, was conducting a personal flight in a twin-engine airplane after troubleshooting an unknown problem with the left engine fuel system; a family member described the flight as a "test flight." Witnesses reported that, after departure, the airplane climbed to about 500 ft above ground level and began a left turn. During the left turn, the airplane "nose dived" in a downward spiral, and the airplane impacted terrain.
Postaccident examinations revealed no mechanical anomalies with the airframe, right engine, or propellers that would have precluded normal operation. The left engine propeller blade damage was consistent with low or no power at the time of the accident, and the blades were found in an unfeathered position.
Evidence indicated that the pilot had recently replaced the left and right fuel selector valves and had been performing ground engine runs. A comprehensive examination of the airplane's fuel system was not possible due to the extensive fire damage to the system. However, given the unknown left engine fuel system issue, a loose left fuel selector fuel line, and the lack of power signatures on the left propeller blades, it is likely that the fuel system's performance was degraded and led to a partial or total loss of left engine power. The airplane's downward spiral was consistent with the pilot exceeding the airplane's critical angle of attack during a single-engine operation, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and subsequent loss of control.
Toxicological testing detected a sedating antihistamine in the pilot's liver specimens, but not in his aortic blood specimens, making it less likely that the medication would be impairing. Thus, the pilot's use of this medication was likely not a factor in this accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack following a loss of the left engine power shortly after takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at an altitude too low for recovery. Contributing to the accident was the loss of left engine power due most likely to a fuel system issue that could not be determined based on the available evidence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA035
- Event ID
- 20181129X70430
- Case number
- CEN19FA035
- 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: 016e5abf945eb047be58b5620126dae8feaecb15a738d1d20fc18355123084be; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:51:31.184Z.