DEN99FA120 · Piper PA-22-150
K W Aviation Piper PA-22-150 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD) to Jackpot Airport/Hayden Field (06U)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99FA120
- 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
- 4 · 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-22-150
- 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
- N7729D
- Operator
- K W Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ogden Hinckley Airport (OGD), Ogden, UTTo Jackpot Airport/Hayden Field (06U), Jackpot, NV
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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 › Stall, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During initial climb following takeoff, the aircraft was observed to settle then climb slowly. The aircraft entered a right turn and the controller queried the pilot regarding having problems. The pilot did not indicate he was having problems but stated he would return and land. The controller issued a clearance to land on the nearest runway. The aircraft wings were observed to be rocking followed by the aircraft rolling inverted to the right and descending into trees. Density altitude at the time was 7,400 feet. Investigation revealed the aircraft was 136 pounds over the maximum certified gross weight allowable.
Probable cause
The pilot inadvertently allowing the aircraft to enter a stall during initial climb following takeoff. Factors were high density altitude and gross weight which exceeded the maximum.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99FA120
- Event ID
- 20001212X19237
- Case number
- DEN99FA120
- 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: 7b6b6ed3a3f039871b1916c43c290f6e2be6fbdb0845d9a88c78908473592906; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:59:01.383Z.