CHI91LA240 · Piper J-3
Piper J-3 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Southwest Minnesota Regional Airport - Marshall/Ryan Field (MML)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA240
- 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
- Unknown
Piper J-3
- Aircraft type
- Piper J-3
- 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
- N1402N
- Operator
- Schaefer, William J. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Southwest Minnesota Regional Airport - Marshall/Ryan Field (MML), Marshall, MN
- 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 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Climb, not attained
- Pilot in command › Performance data, misjudged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Saint Leo, MN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID THAT WHILE ATTEMPTING TO TAKEOFF FROM A CUT OAT FARM FIELD, THE ACFT FAILED TO ATTAIN A POSITIVE CLIMB. THE ACFT STRUCK A DIRT EMBANKMENT, LOST FLYING SPEED, AND SETTLED INTO A CORN FIELD.
Probable cause
PERFORMANCE DATA WAS MISJUDGED RESULTING IN A POSITIVE CLIMB NOT BEING ATTAINED BY THE PILOT. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS HIGH DENSITY ALTITUDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA240
- Event ID
- 20001212X17514
- Case number
- CHI91LA240
- 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: 22235d4ae52a419af6cbaa365b9d476d3041bac8064afa14215ebe945471093c; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:55:17.853Z.