CHI88FA198 · Piper PA-28
Piper PA-28 · Accident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From 07C to Wittman Regional Airport (OSH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88FA198
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28
- 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
- N3828K
- Operator
- Mark Sherbinski
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 07CTo Wittman Regional Airport (OSH), Oshkosh, WI
- 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 › Proper climb rate, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE INSTRUMENT RATED PVT PLT FILED AN IFR FLT PLAN FOR A FLT FROM AN UNCONTROLLED ARPT AT NIGHT. THE ARPT MANAGER WAS AWAKENED BY THE SOUND OF THE ACFT STARTING & TAXIING. HE NOTED THAT THE RWY LIGHTS WERE ON, BUT WERE OBSCURED BY DENSE FOG. HIS HOUSE WAS APRX 150 FT FROM THE RWY. AT 0445 EST, THE PLT OBTAINED A CLNC TO TAKEOFF WITH A VOID TIME OF 0500 EST. WHEN THE VOID TIME HAD PASSED & THE PLT HAD NOT CONTACTED ATC, ATC PSNL CONTACTED THE ARPT MANAGER. THE ARPT MANAGER CHECKED THE HANGAR AREA & FOUND THE ACFT HAD DEPARTED. A SEARCH WAS INITIATED, BUT IT WAS HAMPERED BY DENSE FOG. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT WAS FOUND WHERE IT HAD CRASHED ABOUT 700 FT SOUTHWEST FROM THE DEP END OF RWY 27. INITIAL IMPACT OCCURRED WITH A 40 FT TREE WHILE THE ACFT WAS ON A HEADING OF 258 DEG. AFTER TRAVELING ABOUT 200 FT, IT HIT ANOTHER TREE ABOUT 26 FT ABOVE THE GROUND, THEN CRASHED TO THE GROUND. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OF THE ACFT WAS FOUND, THOUGH IT WAS DESTROYED BY IMPACT & FIRE.
Probable cause
FLIGHT KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88FA198
- Event ID
- 20001213X26488
- Case number
- CHI88FA198
- 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: 6ba58965f8c805112c278e2b4d71a2a5dc7f4f23d9c714e1de646ac16914bca2; retrieved 2026-09-21T03:36:41.192Z.