Star Marianas Air Piper PA32 300 accident
Piper PA32 300 · Accident: birdstrike during initial climb
From Mount Gunson Airport (GSN) to Satna Airport (TNI)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA268
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 PA32 300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N4599X
- Operator
- Star Marianas Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mount Gunson Airport (GSN), SaipanTo Satna Airport (TNI), Tinian Island
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1975)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Birdstrike
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The operator reported that, during the initial climb, about 1,500 ft, the pilot and passengers reported hearing and feeling an impact. Subsequently, the upper left engine cowling separated and struck the windshield. The pilot declared an emergency, returned to the departure airport, and landed without further incident.
Postaccident examination revealed traces of blood on the propeller, the left wing leading edge, and the vertical stabilizer leading edge. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage, which was consistent with impact damage from the separated engine cowling.
The operator reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The airplane’s collision with a bird during the initial climb, which resulted in the engine cowling separating and impacting the empennage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA268
- Event ID
- 20190516X24200
- Case number
- GAA19CA268
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 68ef9e4982c1e3d1bbc9ee2e8d4fa36bd2c4a53d1019a970340042d415a4b52d; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:00:59.526Z.