CEN21FA380 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21FA380
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N70643
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 75 years (built 1946)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot’s wife reported that he departed from their private grass runway; she did not know his destination or his expected return time and became concerned when the pilot did not return by dark. The airplane was located the next morning in the middle of a cornfield about 300 yards northwest of the runway.
The airplane came to rest in a nose-low, tail-high attitude. The wings and fuselage sustained substantial damage. Flight control continuity was confirmed throughout the airframe. Examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The orientation of the wreckage was consistent with impact with terrain in an aerodynamic stall.
Based on negative postmortem ethanol testing results in vitreous and urine, the ethanol detected in the pilot’s blood was likely from sources other than ingestion. It is unlikely that ethanol contributed to the accident. Based on negative postmortem opioid testing results in femoral blood, it is unlikely that the pilot’s opioid use contributed to the accident. The pilot had cardiovascular disease, but available evidence is insufficient to determine whether he was impaired or incapacitated by that disease, and whether a medical condition contributed to the accident could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21FA380
- Event ID
- 20210823103743
- Case number
- CEN21FA380
- 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, coordinates. 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: ea66ab21cf8e05b11976fe6cda4d0d683fbf5bf84f0b95896e883f219fb8d3c9; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:33:35.153Z.