PIPER J-4A — Pine River, MN

What happened

The private pilot was making a local personal flight. One witness who saw the airplane just after it became airborne reported that it sounded normal but that it was flying at a low altitude and a slow speed over the runway. Several witnesses reported seeing the airplane flying around treetop level with the wings "wobbling" back and forth. According to these witnesses, the airplane banked to the left, its nose rose, and then the airplane entered a descending spiral. Examination of the accident site, which was located about 0.25 miles from the departure end of the runway, indicated that the airplane impacted the terrain in an open field in a nose-down attitude. A review of the pilot's logbook revealed that he did not have a current flight review nor had he logged any flights in the past 1.5 years. A postaccident examination of the airplane did not reveal any failure or malfunction of the flight controls, even though its annual inspection was overdue by 1 year 8 months. Debris was found in both the engine's oil and fuel screens; however, the amount of debris was not enough to have caused a loss of engine power. No airframe or engine anomalies were observed that would have precluded normal operations. The witness observations and the airplane's nose-down attitude at impact are consistent with the pilot allowing the airspeed to decrease to the point where the wing's critical angle-of-attack was exceeded. As a result, the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall and departed controlled flight. It is likely that the pilot's lack of recent flight experience contributed to his failure to maintain adequate airspeed. If he had obtained a flight review or refresher training before making the flight, the accident may have been prevented.

An editorial "what led to it / how to avoid it" analysis for this accident is generated separately and will appear here.