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LAX97LA090 · Piper PA-18-150

15 Jan 1997 · Chandler, AZ, United States

Chandler Air Service Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during landing

From Mucugê Airport (CHD) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
LAX97LA090
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-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
N4101E
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Mucugê Airport (CHD)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 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
Landing · landing roll
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
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Dual student › Directional control, not maintained
  • Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The flight instructor (CFI) reported that on roll-out from a touch-and-go landing, the student looked down for the flap handle as he raised the flaps. During this process, the aircraft started to go to the right. The CFI stated, 'I tried to correct to the left using rudder and aileron, then also using power, but the plane ground looped to the right and the left wing dipped, striking the ground.' Additionally, the CFI indicated that there were no mechanical malfunctions with the aircraft before the accident.

Probable cause

failure of the student pilot to maintain directional control of the aircraft, and the flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the flight. The student's diverted attention was a related factor.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX97LA090
Event ID
20001208X07318
Case number
LAX97LA090
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: 217bdb9c710184aa39dc3dd0265cfd483f8f9b2e189d29eac165a4f635ab3785; retrieved 2026-09-22T20:29:41.002Z.