ERA19FA164 · Piper PA28 140
Lightning Aviation Piper PA28 140 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Foley Municipal Airport (5R4) to Foley Municipal Airport (5R4)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19FA164
- 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
- 0
- 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 140
- 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
- N5542U
- Operator
- Lightning Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Foley Municipal Airport (5R4), Foley, ALTo Foley Municipal Airport (5R4), Foley, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 50 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor and student pilot were conducting simulated engine-out emergency procedures in the airport traffic pattern. About 300-400 ft above ground level after takeoff, witnesses reported that the flight instructor announced on the radio that the engine had quit. Witnesses reported that the airplane then entered a nose-high, steep left turn before pitching down and impacting the ground.
Postaccident examination of the airframe and flight controls revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. Examination of the engine revealed that the No. 4 cylinder exhaust valve was stuck in the valve guide due to excessive combustion deposits. It is likely that the stuck exhaust valve resulted in a partial loss of engine power.
A flight instructor who flew the accident airplane the day before the accident flight reported experiencing engine roughness when performing simulated engine-out procedures. Following that flight, a mechanic cleaned the sparkplugs, performed an engine run-up, and returned the airplane to service; however, maintenance records did not show that the engine valves were inspected for sticking at that time. Manufacturer service instructions suggested inspecting for valve sticking at regular intervals or sooner if sticking was suspected. If a valve inspection had been completed in accordance with engine manufacturer guidance the day before the accident following the report of engine roughness, it is likely that the heavy carbon deposits on the exhaust valve would have been detected.
Given that the flight instructor reportedly had students trim the airplane nose-up when landing, it is possible that the airplane was trimmed nose-high at the time of takeoff and the subsequent loss of engine power. Such a trim setting would have led to excessive pitch up, resulting in a rapid loss of airspeed, an exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack, and an aerodynamic stall at low altitude.
Probable cause
A partial loss of engine power due to a stuck exhaust valve and the flight instructor's exceedance of the airplane's critical angle of attack following the loss of power, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19FA164
- Event ID
- 20190506X45027
- Case number
- ERA19FA164
- 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: 00441385de534d1ca24355e3573b1844c85e86f780ef27e811fe9fd18407b9e3; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:57:35.775Z.