ERA21LA139 · Piper PA-28-181
Ari Ben Aviator Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA139
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N885AC
- Operator
- Ari Ben Aviator
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Treasure Coast International Airport (FPR), Fort Pierce, FLTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2020)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot under instruction was undergoing a stage check. On what was to be the last landing, the pilot was to perform a short field landing. As the airplane approached the runway, the pilot initiated the landing flare too high. The stall warning horn annunciated, and the flight instructor instructed the pilot to execute a go around. However, the pilot did not add power, so the flight instructor took over the flight controls, and added full power. The flight instructor tried to recover, but the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall, started turning into the wind, and directional control of the airplane was lost. The airplane then started descending and yawing to the right, and the airplane touched down hard coming to rest on the grass off the right side of the runway. The airplane’s left wing and stabilator were substantially damaged.
Probable cause
The pilot under instruction’s improper landing flare and attempted go-around which resulted in an aerodynamic stall, and subsequent loss of control. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor’s delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA139
- Event ID
- 20210226102680
- Case number
- ERA21LA139
- 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: 60dbedd375d810db54863aad22da2fc111bb393dccb040f27ba9d8da591de3d2; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:44:59.940Z.