FTW94LA005 · Piper PA-28-180C
Piper PA-28-180C · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Altus Quartz Mountain Regional Airport (AXS)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94LA005
- 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-28-180C
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9317J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Altus Quartz Mountain Regional Airport (AXS), Altus, 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
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THAT HE LEANED THE MIXTURE FOR HIGH ALTITUDE JUST PRIOR TO THE TAKEOFF ROLL. SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF THE ENGINE STARTED RUNNING VERY ROUGH. AFTER ADVANCING THE MIXTURE TO FULL RICH THE ENGINE LOST ALL POWER, AND HE MADE A FORCED LANDING IN AN OPEN FIELD. AFTER ALL THE OCCUPANTS EXITED THE AIRPLANE, THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AND THE AIRPLANE BURNED. ONE WITNESS SAID HE SAW THE AIRPLANE MAKE A LEFT TURN, STALL, AND IMPACT THE GROUND. ANOTHER WITNESS, AN ACTIVE PILOT WITH A COMMERCIAL CERTIFICATE, SAID THAT HE FIRST OBSERVED THE AIRPLANE AT A LOW AIRSPEED, HIGH ANGLE-OF-ATTACK, CLIMBING AT ABOUT THE SAME RATE AS THE UP-SLOPE OF THE GROUND. IT THEN PITCHED UP AND DOWN, AND ROLLED INTO A SHARPLY DESCENDING LEFT TURN; IT APPEARED TO HIM THAT IT HAD STALLED. AS THE AIRPLANE THEN APPROACHED THE WITNESS'S LOCATION, HE HEARD THE ENGINE OPERATING & DEVELOPING POWER JUST BEFORE IT CRASHED. THE PILOT HAD ORIGINALLY TOLD THE FAA INSPECTOR THAT '...THE AIRCRAFT STALLED.' POST-ACCIDENT ENGINE EXAMINATION DID NOT DISCLOSE ANY ANOMALIES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE AIRSPEED. THE HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS A FACTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94LA005
- Event ID
- 20001211X13560
- Case number
- FTW94LA005
- 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: 990264627c91f1f6a2be453a146672f6bf5cd6cc6aead3268017bf0b486c3383; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:08:15.595Z.