CHI98LA337 · WSK PZL Mielec PZL M18B
WSK PZL Mielec PZL M18B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA337
- 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
WSK PZL Mielec PZL M18B
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec PZL M18B
- 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
- N4450M
- Operator
- Michael Kratz
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › All available runway, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot said that the airplane lifted off normally, but then wanted to set back down. The pilot lowered the flaps to 15-degrees in hopes of keeping the airplane from settling. Lowering flaps did not seem to help. The pilot said that he then went for the dump handle, but could not find it initially. When he did find it, the airplane impacted into a swamp just off the end of the 3,000 foot long airstrip. Examination of the wreckage revealed no anomalies. According to the Takeoff Distance Chart in the PZL M18B Aircraft Flight Manual, an airplane with atomizers and zero flaps extended, weighing 10,700 pounds, at a temperature of 33 degrees Centigrade, and zero headwind, will require a takeoff distance of approximately 3,600 feet.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper preflight preparation resulting in the airplane exceeding the available airstrip distance during takeoff. A factor contributing to this accident was the swamp.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA337
- Event ID
- 20001211X11018
- Case number
- CHI98LA337
- 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 1998-09-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7391136a0191c0e068b762a8982801d690195705e8d1896f892fd76d94fb2fe6; retrieved 2026-09-22T16:49:59.895Z.