CEN19FA135 · Piper PA34 220T
SPC Leasing Piper PA34 220T · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Anderson Municipal Darlington Field (AID) to Huntington Municipal Airport (HHG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19FA135
- 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 PA34 220T
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA34
- 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
- N999CR
- Operator
- SPC Leasing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anderson Municipal Darlington Field (AID), Anderson, INTo Huntington Municipal Airport (HHG), Huntington, IN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- 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 pilot planned to ferry the twin-engine airplane to another airport for the annual maintenance inspection. Several witnesses saw the airplane's departure. Two of the witness reported that the airplane engines didn't sound "normal". Several witnesses reported that the airplane appeared to pitch up, before stalling.
A video from the airport's security camera revealed that the airplane appeared to climb steeply; the airplane's wings rocked back-and-forth, and the airplane disappeared out of view. When the airplane reappeared in the camera's view, the airplane was in a descent with the left wing low. The airplane collided with terrain and the airplane cabin area was largely destroyed by the impact.
Examination of the airplane found the stabilator trim actuator screw was near its maximum nose up setting. The left engine was removed from the airframe and tested in the engine manufacturers test cell. The engine test run reveled the engine did not produce full rated horsepower and on occasions produced black exhaust which was indicative of a rich fuel air mixture. The fuel servo was replaced with a new unit and the engine was able to produce rated horsepower. Further examination of the original fuel servo showed that the control linkage (rod and link assembly), was installed incorrectly.
The accident is consistent with loss of power on the left engine due to an incorrectly installed fuel servo and an excessive nose up trim setting, which resulted in steep climb angle, a loss of airspeed, and an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The loss of left engine power due to an incorrectly adjusted fuel servo and the airplane's nose up trim which resulted in the airplane steep climb, loss of airspeed, and aerodynamic stall and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19FA135
- Event ID
- 20190505X00851
- Case number
- CEN19FA135
- 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: cd279630f0e3a6ea84475b30d50f378f5af081a472b68c1f64fd5e223f203fb9; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:54:31.644Z.