SEA97LA155 · Piper PA-18
Piper PA-18 · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Prineville Airport (S39) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA97LA155
- 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
- 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
- N1182A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Prineville Airport (S39), ORTo 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 · aborted
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › Clearance, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Immediately after touching down on the short grass airstrip, the pilot observed that an irrigation pipe had been laid out across the runway. He decided to abort the landing and apply full power. The airplane became airborne again and did not climb over the rising terrain and obstructions ahead of it. The airplane impacted a tree near the departure end of the airstrip. The owner of the airstrip stated that he advises all pilots to never attempt go-arounds at the airstrip. The pilot had previously landed at the airstrip on numerous occasions, and always to a full stop. On the day of the accident, the pilot made a straight-in approach to the airstrip without first surveying the landing area from the air. The pilot stated that he attempted to out climb the terrain with partial flaps and 42 miles per hour of airspeed during the aborted landing, but without success. Performance information charts indicate that the best climb speed should have been about 57 miles per hour and the flaps should have been retracted.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of an unsuitable landing area, his improper decision to attempt an aborted takeoff on a short airstrip surround by rising terrain and trees, and his failure to maintain clearance from the trees during the aborted takeoff attempt. Factors contributing to the accident include rising terrain and trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA97LA155
- Event ID
- 20001208X08269
- Case number
- SEA97LA155
- 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: bbf4cbbaf20d8183694086d60404be42729e4f29e2a81aa1c43f07e63c032892; retrieved 2026-09-22T19:21:10.941Z.