SEA98LA126 · Piper PA-22
Piper PA-22 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98LA126
- 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-22
- 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
- N2646A
- Operator
- Webb, Carey, I. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO), Arlington, WA
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The two pilots aboard the airplane intended to takeoff to the north from a rough, turf runway. The flight was to have been conducted under the provisions of a ferry permit, as the airplane was out of annual inspection. The private pilot in the left seat, who had just purchased the airplane, stated that 'we started the plane up and went down to the end of the runway and made a U-turn and started our takeoff. As we powered up (with) the plane heading down the runway we gradually went just a few feet to the right where the tall bushes were at. The grass strip is only about 30 feet wide with little room for error. The plane was bouncing from the pot holes and we clipped the right wingtip making it very difficult to bring (it) back to the left. It all happened very fast and before we could correct it the right gear leg found a ditch that was covered by the brush and over we went.' The flight instructor, in the right seat, stated that 'We made our runup, checked the checklist, and started the takeoff. Halfway down the runway we were close to the right edge. The wing tip hooked the brush and pulled us in and flipped us upside down.' The former owner of the airplane, who also owned the airstrip, stated that when he arrived at the accident scene, he asked what had happened, and the pilots responded that each had thought the other pilot had control.
Probable cause
Directional control was not maintained by the pilot in command. Factors include rough terrain and hidden obstructions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98LA126
- Event ID
- 20001211X10708
- Case number
- SEA98LA126
- 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: da80cafb906a89f404e8ed58da20f9c43d9bc0817ee1e5e29ed3dcaf2d7d5b55; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:47:12.233Z.