CHI95LA120 · Piper PA-32-260
Piper PA-32-260 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA120
- 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 PA-32-260
- 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
- N3631W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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 terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Impairment(drugs)
- Pilot in command › Operation with known deficiencies in equipment, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER AN ABORTED TAKEOFF DUE TO POOR ACCELERATION, THE PILOT DROPPED OFF HIS PASSENGERS. ONE PASSENGER, A PILOT, TOLD HIM TO HAVE A MECHANIC LOOK AT THE AIRPLANE BEFORE HE FLEW IT AGAIN. THE PILOT SAID YES AND PROCEEDED TO TAKEOFF. THE DEPLANED PILOT SAID THE AIRPLANE CLIMBED TO ABOUT 15 FEET ABOVE THE RUNWAY, DESCENDED ABOUT 10 FEET, BEGAN A LEFT TURN, AND DRAGGED ITS WINGTIP IN THE DIRT. THE LEFT WING'S FUEL TANK AREA RUPTURED. THE AIRPLANE THEN COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND, SPINNING AROUND AND COMING TO A STOP ENGULFED IN FLAMES. AN EXAMINATION OF THE FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM AND PROPELLER REVEALED NO MECHANICAL ANOMALIES. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED MECHANICAL CONTINUITY THROUGHOUT. HOWEVER, ENGINE CYLINDERS NUMBER 5 AND 6 HAD THEIR RESPECTIVE CAMSHAFT LOBES WORN DOWN SO THAT THEIR VALVES WOULD ONLY OPEN ABOUT 30 PERCENT OF THE MANUFACTURER'S PRESCRIBED DISTANCES. THE FAA'S CIVIL AERO MEDICAL INSTITUTE (CAMI) TOXICOLOGY REPORT SHOWED HIGH LEVELS OF PRESCIPTION NARCOTIC PAINKILLERS IN THE PILOT'S BLOOD AND LIVER FLUIDS. REVIEW OF THE PILOT'S RECORDS FROM CAMI REVEALED A HISTORY OF CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE WITH ANGIOPLASTY PERFORMED 8/10/94, AND A HISTORY OF LOW BACK BACK PAIN FOR WHICH HE WAS PRESCRIBED LARGE AMOUNTS OF NARCOTIC PAINKILLERS. HE HAD NOT BEEN ISSUED A CURRENT MEDICAL CERTIFICATE.
Probable cause
the pilot's impairment of judgment and performance due to drugs which led to his operating the airplane with a known mechanical deficiency.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA120
- Event ID
- 20001207X03258
- Case number
- CHI95LA120
- 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: fb6fbcbb9af26e71736c6622c4fac940fbb6587f1fadbbdca6e8ea7ea2eced17; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:49:47.983Z.