ERA25FA201 · Piper PA32RT 300
Piper PA32RT 300 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Nassau Airport (83FL) to Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (FHB)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25FA201
- 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
- 0
- 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 PA32RT 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
- N30689
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nassau Airport (83FL), Yulee, FLTo Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (FHB), Fernandina Beach, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1978)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was to reposition the airplane from the departure airport to an airport about 4 nautical miles (nm) away. Before the flight the pilot drove to the destination airport and dropped his spouse, dogs, and some baggage there, where they would wait out storms that were forecasted to pass through the area. He then returned to the departure airport and finished loading the airplane. Surveillance video showed the airplane taxiing and departing. During taxi the nose baggage door appeared to be closed, but during the takeoff roll the nose baggage door appeared to be open. The airplane was then observed during initial climb at a high angle of attack; subsequently, the left wing dropped and the airplane made a steep left-wing-low descent, impacting trees and the ground. The entirety of the flight lasted about 10 seconds. During postaccident examination, the nose baggage door was not located in the wreckage; the fuselage, including the location of the nose baggage door, was consumed by postimpact fire. No preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures were found with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. Witnesses described that it had just begun to rain about the time of the accident. A review of meteorological conditions showed that at the time of the accident there were thunderstorms quickly moving toward the area. It is not likely that the airplane encountered a weather phenomenon that would have jeopardized the safety of the flight, because the storms were not directly over the accident area at the time of the accident. However, the approaching thunderstorms likely resulted in external pressures and the pilot experiencing “get-there-itis” and rushing to depart on the short flight. It is also likely that, in his rush to depart, the pilot did not ensure the nose baggage door was securely latched, which resulted in the door opening during the takeoff roll. The pilot’s distraction during a critical phase of flight likely resulted in the airplane’s nose-high pitch attitude, exceedance of the critical angle of attack, and subsequent stall/spin.
Probable cause
The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during takeoff, which resulted in a stall/spin at an altitude too low for recovery. Contributing to the accident was the opening of the nose baggage door and subsequent distraction of the pilot during a critical phase of flight, as well as the external pressure of the approaching thunderstorms, which likely resulted in the pilot rushing to depart.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25FA201
- Event ID
- 20250510200140
- Case number
- ERA25FA201
- 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, 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: 0c923e9ad92c38958e86d19405166675e8940830b9ee0866aeb43ac1ff72f7c4; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:04:53.016Z.