SEA97GA008 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Delta Municipal Airport (DTA) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operation. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97GA008
- 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
- Government Narrative disagrees
- 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-18-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-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
- N91017
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delta Municipal Airport (DTA), Delta, UTTo 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The first pilot, seated in the front seat of the public use airplane, was banking the airplane to the left while flying in close proximity to the ground over an open field in pursuit of running coyote. The first pilot was in the second phase of an agency training program. The second pilot, acting as a part-time instructor pilot/gunner and seated in the rear seat, was pointing a shotgun outside the airplane in an attempt to kill the coyote as per the agency's aerial hunting program. The airplane aerodynamically stalled during the maneuver and entered an uncontrolled descent; it impacted the ground in a near-vertical, inverted attitude and was destroyed. An examination of the airframe and engine did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions. The airplane was about 75 pounds over its published maximum gross weight, and the density altitude was about 6,500 feet during the accident. Unapproved modifications to the airplane and inadequate maintenance record keeping by the operator were found during the investigation. The second pilot's throttle handle was not installed in the throttle control at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The first pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while maneuvering the airplane in close proximity to the ground. This subsequently led to an aerodynamic stall and uncontrolled descent into the ground. Factors contributing to the accident include the lack of adequate altitude to recover from the stall, the pilot's failure to operate the airplane within its published weight and balance envelope, and high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97GA008
- Event ID
- 20001208X06971
- Case number
- SEA97GA008
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: ea9c29ec82e5725ad06d8aa9f73bf32471a86484605a5a5df4c593f9cb9eb792; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:10:25.972Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: operation. The narrative states "The first pilot, seated in the front seat of the public use airplane", flying "as per the agency's aerial hunting program"; the flight was a public aircraft operation, not Part 91 general aviation.