WPR19FA163 · Piper PA28 151
Piper PA28 151 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Buchanan Field (KCCR) to Buchanan Field (KCCR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR19FA163
- 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 PA28 151
- 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
- N7943C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buchanan Field (KCCR), Antioch, CATo Buchanan Field (KCCR), Antioch, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The newly certificated private pilot rented the airplane to continue building flight experience in preparation for future flight training. Radar data showed that the airplane departed normally and proceeded to an area that the pilot had used as a practice area during his flight training. The airplane began to maneuver within this area, climbing to a maximum altitude of 5,300 ft mean sea level before it descended over a river and below radar coverage. Two witnesses in the area of the accident site saw the airplane “performing tricks,” during which it descended toward the surface of the water and pulled up abruptly. The airplane then entered a nose-low descent that continued until impact with the water. Both witnesses reported that the airplane impacted the river in a nose-low attitude at high speed.
Examination of the recovered wreckage revealed no mechanical failures or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The circumstances of the accident are consistent with the pilot’s loss of control while maneuvering at high speed and low altitude.
Probable cause
A loss of control while conducting low-altitude, high-speed maneuvers.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR19FA163
- Event ID
- 20190610X10403
- Case number
- WPR19FA163
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-06-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8ae50201feaa1b400acacd0d4e42d55616aabc242fd06e35dad6657ca9caa776; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:59:39.068Z.