FTW95LA304 · Piper PA-25-235
Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From JOES, CO (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA304
- 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-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- 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
- N9801P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From JOES, CO (no airport)To 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Maneuvering · aerial application
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, static
- 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 › Aircraft weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CONDUCTING HIS FIRST SPRAY RUN ON AN AERIAL APPLICATION FLIGHT, THE PILOT WAS UNABLE TO ARREST HIS DESCENT AND THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK THE GROUND. HE ADDED FULL POWER AND WAS ABLE TO GET THE AIRCRAFT AIRBORNE, BUT IT WOULD NEITHER ACCELERATE NOR CLIMB. AFTER TRANSITING ABOUT ONE HALF MILE ACROSS THE FIELD BEING WORKED, THE AIRCRAFT STRUCK POWER LINES AND CARTWHEELED. CALCULATIONS PROVIDED INFORMATION THAT THE AIRCRAFT WAS APPROXIMATELY 400 POUNDS OVER MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE GROSS WEIGHT AT TAKEOFF WHICH WAS ABOUT 15 MINUTES PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S EXCESSIVE RATE OF DESCENT AS HE INITIATED THE SWATH RUN AND OPERATION OF THE AIRCRAFT OVER THE MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE GROSS WEIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA304
- Event ID
- 20001207X03961
- Case number
- FTW95LA304
- 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: 2ece3874b2b94f2e19cbfe61119bc65da0063c9731180563680656211479bb60; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:36:31.138Z.