DEN87LA118 · Piper PA-22-150
Piper PA-22-150 · Accident: on ground/water encounter with weather during takeoff
From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN87LA118
- 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-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
- N7511D
- Operator
- Gary D. Macfadden · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Missoula Montana Airport (MSO), Missoula, MTTo 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water encounter with weather
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, improper
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Lack of total experience in type operation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PRIVATE PLT WAS PRACTICING TOUCH AND GO LANDINGS. WHILE ON A TAKEOFF ROLL, A GUST OF WIND LIFTED THE RIGHT WING AND PUSHED THE ACFT OFF THE RWY TO THE LEFT. DIRECTIONAL CONTROL WAS LOST AND THE ACFT TAXIED THROUGH HIGH GRASS PARALLEL TO THE RWY. THE NOSE WHEEL STRUCK A CLUMP OF EARTH AND COLLAPSED. THE ACFT NOSED OVER AND CAME TO REST INVERTED. THE PLT STATED THAT HE NEEDED MORE CROSSWIND TAKEOFFS AND LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN87LA118
- Event ID
- 20001213X30911
- Case number
- DEN87LA118
- 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: e808ddb7793a996913e1033bff3584512f2f4924100bf09d22e904b930d5b173; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:12:21.225Z.