FTW96LA377 · Pzl-Mielec MIG-17
Pzl-Mielec MIG-17 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during takeoff
From Tradewind Airport (TDW) to F39 · Sherman, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA377
- 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
Pzl-Mielec MIG-17
- Aircraft type
- PZL Mielec MIG-17
- 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
- N1719
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tradewind Airport (TDW)To F39 · Sherman, TX
- 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
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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/mush
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, premature
- Pilot in command › Rotation, excessive
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Amarillo, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll, the airplane's aft fuselage skid struck the runway, and the airplane became airborne for a short distance. The airplane touched down to the right of the runway, became airborne again, and then impacted the ground right wing low, caught fire, and slid across a road before coming to rest. Witnesses reported that the airplane appeared 'to not want to fly' and 'acted as if it was too heavy to fly with the amount of airspeed it had.' The MIG-17 Flight Manual stated that the takeoff rotation should be performed 'by pulling gently the stick and hold[ing] the aircraft in this position till it gets airborne.' The pilot had accumulated a total of 13.6 flight hours in the MIG-17 airplane. The pilot did not respond to a request to provide the Safety Board with a written statement concerning the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's excessive takeoff rotation which led to premature lift-off at a speed inadequate to maintain flight. A factor was the pilot's lack of experience in the MIG-17.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA377
- Event ID
- 20001208X06724
- Case number
- FTW96LA377
- 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: 97abc0930306d5f3776497589026b5bedf22bdc081dada9ba73229732242ef56; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:28:49.025Z.