CHI96FA324 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From ONZ to Jackson County Airport/Reynolds Field (JXN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI96FA324
- 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
- 2 · 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N7082W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From ONZTo Jackson County Airport/Reynolds Field (JXN), Jackson, MI
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Stall
- 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 › Aircraft control, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Altitude, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness said she remembered first hearing the airplane and then turned to watch the airplane climb out. She said that the airplane's altitude was lower than normal. 'The airplane was going right to left. It was half as high as the normal flight traffic going on.' The witness said she then saw the airplane enter a steep left bank of approximately 70 to 75 degrees. The airplane came at her and continued its turn so that she could see the bottom of the airplane. The witness said that the airplane lost altitude steadily through the turn until the left wing contacted the water. 'There was a splash, but not an overly large one. The airplane then came out upright.' Another witness said the airplane 'was way low. Usually, they are five times higher. The right wing went up. The engine sound went silent. The airplane disappeared behind the trees. Then I heard a thud. The whole thing lasted 6 to 8 seconds.' The pilot and the passenger in the right rear seat survived the accident. Both sustained head injuries and remember nothing regarding the accident. Examination of the wreckage revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
the pilot exceeding the critical angle of bank required to maintain altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI96FA324
- Event ID
- 20001208X06683
- Case number
- CHI96FA324
- 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: 0ede17f0d8eebb5f7bde6dd87a46f25a09545a9ff73352d9a07f5cca9949db36; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:12:17.282Z.