DEN88FA062 · Piper PA-18-125
Piper PA-18-125 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN88FA062
- 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
- 1 · 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-18-125
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N1153A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aerobatics, performed
- Pilot in command › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PILOT WAS OBSERVED BY WITNESSES TO 'BUZZ' THE CITY OF BRIGHTON, COLORADO. WITNESSES STATED THAT N1153A FLEW OVER HOUSES AND BUILDINGS AT A VERY LOW ALTITUDE. THE ACFT WAS THEN OBSERVED TO CLIMB TO A HIGH ALTITUDE, DO A 'WING OVER' OR 'HAMMERHEAD' MANUEVER, THEN DESCEND IN A NEAR VERTICAL, NOSE DOWN ALTITUDE. THE ACFT REMAINED IN THAT ATTITUDE UNTIL GROUND IMPACT. THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF A MECH MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THE ACFT PRIOR TO THE IMPACT. THE STUDENT HAD WRITTEN A LTR TO A GIRLFRIEND EXPRESSING HIS 'UNBELIEVABLE TALENT FOR FLYING.' THE PILOT HAD A TOTAL FLIGHT TIME OF 18 HOURS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN88FA062
- Event ID
- 20001213X25044
- Case number
- DEN88FA062
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-02-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 80297e167de0ef52838a2dd579d91014c729a6a7524b9e12e56302c6625f57c2; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:49:25.635Z.