WPR19TA085 · Piper PA46 350P
Piper PA46 350P · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin on approach
From Aurora State Airport (UAO) to Aurora State Airport (UAO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19TA085
- 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 PA46 350P
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA46
- 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
- N997MA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Aurora State Airport (UAO), Aurora, ORTo Aurora State Airport (UAO), Aurora, OR
- Aircraft age
- About 22 years (built 1997)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the purpose of the instructional flight was to practice commercial pilot maneuvers. He and the instructor returned to the airport at the conclusion of the flight and discussed how to conduct a power-off 180° approach and landing. When the airplane was abeam the 1,000-foot markings on the runway, the pilot reduced engine power to idle and started a left turn toward the runway. He stated that he realized the airplane was “probably not going to make the runway” and that the airplane was “not on final course.” He recalled the airplane turning sharply to the left as he pulled up on the control yoke and added right rudder. The pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or anomalies with the airplane. A video of the event showed the airplane in a left turn as it descended toward the runway. The airplane’s left bank decreased to a wings-level attitude before the airplane entered a steeper left bank, followed immediately by a right bank as the airplane descended into the ground short of the runway. Both the pilot's description and the video are consistent with the pilot exceeding the airplane’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering toward the runway, resulting in an aerodynamic stall, loss of control, and impact with terrain.
Probable cause
The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack while maneuvering for landing during a simulated power-off approach and landing, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control and the flight instructor’s failure to adequately monitor the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19TA085
- Event ID
- 20190207X80033
- Case number
- WPR19TA085
- 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: e32cf606e28b51a32c627e866455b9237ee240e38f59e2b52968e111a7b17c34; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:35:10.720Z.