CHI01LA012 · Piper PA-24-250
Piper PA-24-250 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From Private airstrip to Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA012
- 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-24-250
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N6107P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Private airstripTo Philip Billard Municipal Airport (TOP), Topeka, KS
- 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 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
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Soft field takeoff/procedure, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was destroyed on impact with trees and terrain during initial climb after takeoff from a private airstrip. The runway is oriented in a predominantly north/south direction, and is about 1600 feet in length. The takeoff was executed to the north. The ferry flight was being conducted for the purpose of relocating the aircraft so that maintenance could be performed. A postaccident examination of the accident scene revealed no anomalies that could be associated with a preexisting condition with respect to the aircraft. The grass strip runway was found to have 3-4 inch long grass. The length of the runway was found to be about 0.3 miles long by driving its length with an automobile. A videotape of the accident flight shows that during the takeoff roll the aircraft tail was drug along the runway twice. After initially becoming airborne, the aircraft settled back onto the runway before becoming airborne again. The airplane started an increasingly steep bank to the right before contacting the trees at the departure end of the runway. In a written statement, the pilot said, "We took off down runway-900-ft-hit ruts airplane bounced into air-held nose down to build airspeed-ro[t]ated to late hit trees." In his written report, the pilot listed no mechanical malfunction. In the report, the pilot listed his flight experience in this make and model of aircraft as "None".
Probable cause
the inadequate soft field takeoff procedure by the pilot and his failure to abort the takeoff. Factors were the high grass on the runway, the pilots disregard for the runway conditions, his lack of total experience in the aircraft, the trees, and the pilots failure to maintain clearance from the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA012
- Event ID
- 20001212X22123
- Case number
- CHI01LA012
- 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: 9d3650c256b47dbf969a65ff232e4d1e9509814e29261b3977e1729c70b13752; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:22:39.851Z.