CEN20LA381 · Piper PA36 285
Green Medows Aviation Piper PA36 285 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Evelyn Sharp Field (ODX) to Evelyn Sharp Field (ODX)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN20LA381
- 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 PA36 285
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA36
- 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
- N57607
- Operator
- Green Medows Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Evelyn Sharp Field (ODX), Ord, NETo Evelyn Sharp Field (ODX), Ord, NE
- Aircraft age
- About 45 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was departing on an agricultural flight when the airplane’s airspeed began to decrease while in a turn shortly after takeoff. The pilot confirmed that the engine and propeller were operating normally at takeoff power, but the airspeed continued to decrease closer to an aerodynamic stall speed while in the turn. The pilot chose not to dump the load of liquid herbicide because he thought it might have had a negative effect on controlling the airplane and cause it to enter an aerodynamic stall. The airplane’s right wing dropped shortly before it impacted with the ground, which the pilot attributed to the airplane flying at or near aerodynamic stall. The airplane collided with terrain in a right wing down attitude. The airplane’s fuselage and both wings were substantially damaged during the accident.
The pilot stated that he previously flew the airplane with similar or heavier loads without any adverse effects to airplane performance. He reported that the weather conditions earlier in the morning included rain showers associated with the passage of a weather front; however, at the time of the accident, the wind was calm and there was no precipitation. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures of the airplane or its engine during the flight.
Postaccident examination of the airplane and its engine did not reveal any evidence of a mechanical malfunction or failure that would have prevented normal flight. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the pilot did not maintain adequate airspeed while in the turn during initial climb, which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude from which a recovery was not possible.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed while in a turn during initial climb and his exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at a low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN20LA381
- Event ID
- 20200906X81438
- Case number
- CEN20LA381
- 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, cause areas. 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: 73c5aa5f24c7bd1f202b0a2581d87c8124fc12063c6527b5679feab3c7c36244; retrieved 2026-09-16T12:59:30.536Z.