Piper PA38 accident near East Haven, CT

On February 22, 2017, a Piper PA38 (airplane) was involved in an accident near East Haven, CT. 1 person died. Damage to the aircraft: destroyed.

Date

February 22, 2017

Place

East Haven, CT

Aircraft

Piper PA38 · Airplane

Injuries

1 fatal, 1 serious, 0 minor

Damage

Destroyed

Position

41.254°N, 72.886°W

NTSB ID

20170222X12747

Official records · ERA17FA112

• Public docket: reports, statements and exhibits from the investigation

Air traffic control records

• Excerpt From ATC Transcript: Transcript (PDF), on ntsb.gov
• Excerpt From HVN Tower Communications (4 min, 53 sec in WAV Format): Document (WAV), on ntsb.gov

NTSB summary

HISTORY OF FLIGHTOn February 22, 2017, about 0956 eastern standard time, a Piper PA-38-112, N2452C, was destroyed when it impacted terrain in East Haven, Connecticut, during the initial climb from Tweed-New Haven Airport (HVN), New Haven, Connecticut. The flight instructor was seriously injured, and the student pilot was fatally injured. The airplane was operated by American Flight Academy as an instructional flight conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight. According to an air traffic control transcript provided by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the airplane completed four touch-and-go landings on runway 20, a 5,600-ft-long by 150-ft-wide asphalt runway. At 0955:43, during initial climb after the fourth landing, one of the pilots declared an emergency and stated, "mayday mayday mayday we're going to land on the other runway." The controller cleared the airplane to land, and no further communications were received from the pilots. Another flight instructor, who was also flying in the HVN airport traffic pattern at the time of the accident, stated that he heard the emergency transmission and could hear the airplane's stall warning horn in the background during the transmission. According to a witness, the airplane then spun to the left, descended in a nose-down attitude, and impacted terrain about 1,000 ft southeast of the departure end of runway 20. Review of radar data did not reveal any targets that could be correlated with the ac

Probable cause

The failure of the fuel selector valve in a position that restricted fuel flow to the engine, resulting in a total loss of engine power during initial climb due to fuel starvation. Also causal was the operator's failure to effectively detect and resolve the wear and progressive binding of the fuel selector valve before it failed due to excessive rotational force being applied. Contributing was the

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Source: NTSB aviation accident database (US government, public domain). Findings may be preliminary or later revised by the NTSB. Not a complete global record.