FTW98LA105 · Cessna 140A
Cessna 140A · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From DTN · Denton, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW98LA105
- 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
Cessna 140A
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N377V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From DTN · Denton, TXTo 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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 maintained
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was taking off north from a 1,500 foot grass airstrip. The non-rated passenger, who was seated in the left seat, stated that 'the tail wheel came up at the midpoint of the airstrip.' The pilot added that the airplane became airborne with a little less than 1/3 of the runway remaining. During initial climb, the main landing gear struck the top of a 4 strand barbed wire fence at the end of the airstrip. The airplane decelerated and touched down in a muddy plowed field just north of the airstrip boundary. After rolling about 40 yards, the main landing gear tires sank in the soft ground, and the airplane nosed over. In a telephone interview after the accident, the pilot added that due to recent rains, the north-south grass airstrip was 'soggy and mushy,' but he thought the airplane would have had no problem clearing the marked 4 foot tall barbed wire fence at the departure end of the airstrip.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper planning/decision and failure to ensure that the airplane would be able to remain clear of the fence during takeoff. Factors relating to the accident were: the wet/soft/short runway (and terrain) conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW98LA105
- Event ID
- 20001211X09434
- Case number
- FTW98LA105
- 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 1998-01-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8b5dff37f9cdd439d7847ef642f52e3a5600e06c9e22608078bab5975dfdf534; retrieved 2026-09-22T18:05:13.418Z.