FTW99LA042 · Holiman PIETENPOL AIRCAMPER PIETENPOL
Holiman PIETENPOL AIRCAMPER PIETENPOL · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From M99 · Benton, AR to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW99LA042
- 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
Holiman PIETENPOL AIRCAMPER PIETENPOL
- Aircraft type
- Holiman PIETENPOL AIRCAMPER
- 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
- N396S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From M99 · Benton, ARTo 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the high wing tailwheel equipped airplane lost control of the airplane after impacting a powerline that was suspended 30 feet above the ground. Witnesses near the accident site observed the airplane maneuvering at low altitude prior to the accident. A nearby resident reported to law enforcement officers that he heard the sound of the airplane engine flying near his residence. The resident reported that the sound of the engine stopped about the same time that his home lost electrical power. The resident went outside and found that the single powerline servicing his home was down on the ground. The remains of the wood and fabric airplane came to rest on a southerly heading, about 200 feet beyond the point where the wire was severed. The commercial pilot was occupying the front seat of the 2-seat tandem airplane. Flight control continuity was established to all flight surfaces. Likewise, continuity was established to all engine controls. Fuel was found at the site and there was no fire.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the powerline while maneuvering.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW99LA042
- Event ID
- 20001211X11558
- Case number
- FTW99LA042
- 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: a1550d63e63bf8c21729fbc528ed429d80dd800be2f47ee715d6e3dd287258f5; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:18:15.141Z.