FTW96LA159 · Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18A
Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18A · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA159
- 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
Wsk Pzl Mielec M-18A
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec M-18
- 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
- N2159K
- Operator
- Roberto Caiano
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/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 › Crosswind component, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot's groundcrew, he had flown 5 application flights that morning. He then changed loading operations to another grass airstrip, one that he had never landed on before. One of the groundcrew reported that the airstrip appeared 'very short,' and he suggested to the pilot that he make his 'first ever' takeoff from the field with a partial load. The pilot agreed. A witness who was flying a few miles north of the accident site reported winds from the south at 35-40 mph, with higher gusts. The manufacture's published maximum crosswind velocity for the airplane is 13 knots. The takeoff roll appeared normal until a witness observed the left wing to 'rise up and then come down almost to the ground.' The aircraft veered right, exiting the north sloping airstrip. The aircraft came to rest in the inverted position. After the accident, one witness looked at the ground scars and reported that 'the brakes were applied alternately (right, left, right, left, right, left) then they were both locked-up.' The pilot had purchased this aircraft on 12/29/95, and had approximately 100 hours in make and model.
Probable cause
the pilot exceeding the maximum authorized crosswind component of the airplane. Factors were the crosswind and the side sloping runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA159
- Event ID
- 20001208X05547
- Case number
- FTW96LA159
- 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: 2afaff9829f5e2f7e161cdc44261c29404a9fc1313618c879a0547fa1a8afe91; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:23:37.402Z.