FTW97LA325 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From T40 to Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA325
- 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N177MM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From T40To Chickasha Municipal Airport (CHK), Chickasha, OK
- 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/mush
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that 'the winds were light to variable from the northeast and I decided to takeoff to the north.' He said that the first half of the runway was down hill and the second half was up hill; this was followed by a 100 foot wide 'canyon,' and then by rising terrain. He said that approximately one third of the way down the airstrip, a 'slightly elevated' road crossed the runway which was 'very rough to transition' during takeoff roll. The pilot reported that he 'immediately raised the landing gear and flaps when he became airborne.' He stated that 'after flying over the canyon, he noticed that the airplane seemed to fall out from under him.' The pilot stated that he 'elected to belly the airplane in on the grassy area, on the rising terrain, prior to the trees.' The Pilot's Operating Handbook states: 'On takeoff, do not retract the gear prematurely. The aircraft may settle and make contact with the ground because of lack of flying speed, atmospheric conditions or rolling terrain.' The pilot stated to the FAA inspector that 'the aircraft might have been able to out climb the terrain had he not retracted the flaps.' The end of civil twilight was 2033.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow procedures/directives for takeoff. Factors were the runway's rough/uneven condition and the hilly terrain on the departure end of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA325
- Event ID
- 20001208X08636
- Case number
- FTW97LA325
- 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 1997-08-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: bd5cd25952e7429fd189bac377188d574c5fceba20322b02d2412e007b72334d; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:46:39.750Z.