LAX94LA326 · Piper PA-32R-300
Piper PA-32R-300 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Q32 to Page Municipal Airport (PGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA326
- 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
- 0 · 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 PA-32R-300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-32
- 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
- N5765R
- Operator
- Ronald E. Pate · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Q32To Page Municipal Airport (PGA), Page, AZ
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not attained
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID THE AIRPLANE'S (NORMALLY ASPIRATED) ENGINE DID NOT PRODUCED ADEQUATE POWER TO CLIMB OVER TERRAIN LOCATED ADJACENT TO THE AIRSTRIP. DURING THE TAKEOFF ROLL, THE AIRPLANE INITIALLY BECAME AIRBORNE UPON REACHING AN AIRSPEED OF 65 KNOTS. THE AIRPLANE CLIMBED BETWEEN 2 AND 4 FEET ABOVE THE DIRT RUNWAY'S SURFACE, AND THEN IT SETTLED BACK ONTO THE RUNWAY. THE PILOT CONTINUED THE TAKEOFF ROLL, AND AFTER ACCELERATING TO 70 KNOTS, IT AGAIN BECAME AIRBORNE. AS THE AIRPLANE FLEW PAST THE DEPARTURE END OF THE RUNWAY, THE LANDING GEAR COLLIDED WITH THE PERIMETER BOUNDARY FENCE, THEN THE AIRPLANE COLLIDED WITH GRADUALLY RISING TERRAIN. THE PILOT SAID THAT AT THE TIME OF THE MISHAP THERE WAS NO WIND OR TURBULENCE, AND THE TEMPERATURE WAS 78 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. BASED UPON THIS DATA, THE SAFETY BOARD CALCULATED THAT THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS APPROXIMATELY 7,900 FEET. AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE CHARTS NOTED THAT UNDER THE ALTITUDE AND TEMPERATURE CONDITIONS, THE DISTANCE TO CLEAR A 50-FOOT OBSTACLE IS OFF THE CHART; HOWEVER, INTERPOLATION YIELDS A MINIMUM DISTANCE OF 4,800 FEET. THE PREDICTED RATE OF CLIMB IS 150 FEET PER MINUTE.
Probable cause
the pilot's premature liftoff, and his failure to attain the appropriate airspeed during a takeoff attempt under high density altitude conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA326
- Event ID
- 20001206X02082
- Case number
- LAX94LA326
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: ec1903efaa60f0448a8012fb62198d0aa634807eecd80622d0b3cdafc2f74ad3; retrieved 2026-09-23T00:48:29.792Z.