LAX97FA126 · Piper PA-22-160
Piper PA-22-160 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From E51 to Falcon Field (FFZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA126
- 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
- 4 · 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-22-160
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N3629Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From E51To Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZ
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot made an unplanned stop at the airport due to a sick passenger, then about 30 minutes later, he took off again. Later, the density altitude at the airport was computed to be 6572 feet. After takeoff, the airplane was observed to enter a right crosswind turn, then it abruptly rolled and pitched downward. Reportedly, it remained in a nose down attitude until colliding with terrain. No preimpact mechanical failure was found. Investigation revealed the airplane, which was originally fabric covered, had been metalized; and its engine had been derated from 160 to 150 horsepower. Also, the airplane's propeller had been repitched (impact and ground fire damage precluded measurement of the blade pitch angles). The NOAA Airport/Facility Directory stated under airport remarks that there may be unusual air currents in the vicinity of the airport. Runway 05-23 exhibited a variable gradient; the terrain at the departure end of runway 05 dropped, then raised. The pilot had received his private certificate on 2/18/97. The investigation did not determine whether he had leaned the mixture for takeoff in high density altitude. Also, the takeoff gross weight of the airplane was not determined.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to obtain and/or maintain adequate airspeed during takeoff/initial climb, which resulted in an inadvertent stall and collision with the terrain. High density altitude was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA126
- Event ID
- 20001208X07567
- Case number
- LAX97FA126
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-03-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 114844372a93a8554f3bc101e83ff6efa51a406240f0b8049fd512f4f09814f5; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:01:26.727Z.