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MKC86FCD01 · Piper PA-25-235

29 May 1986 · Lenox, IA, United States

Hermes Service Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb

From 0Y9 · Lenox, IA to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
MKC86FCD01
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-25-235

Aircraft type
Piper PA-25
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
N7029Z
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From 0Y9 · Lenox, IATo 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 137: Agricultural
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 terrain/water
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 › Clearance, not obtained
  • Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not attained

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH A FENCE DURING A TAKEOFF WITH A FULL LOAD OF CHEMICAL PESTICIDE. COLLISION WITH THE GROUND RESULTED IN A FIRE. THE PLT, WHO WAS SERIOUSLY BURNED AND LATER DIED, STATED ON HIS WAY TO THE HOSPITAL THAT HE ATTEMPTED TO DUMP THE ACFT LOAD BUT GRABBED THE FLAP HANDLE BY MISTAKE WHICH EXTENDED FULL FLAPS. THIS WAS THE PLTS THIRD AG OPERATION ACCIDENT, ONE PREVIOUSLY INVOLVED AN ABORTED TAKEOFF AND CRASH OFF THE END OF A RWY. THE RWY IN USE ON THE DAY OF THIS ACCIDENT WAS GRASS APRX ONE TO TWO FT DEEP OVER ALL BUT A 300 FT SECTION OF MOWED AREA IN MID FIELD THAT WAS USED BY LOCAL FLYERS OF RADIO CONTROLLED MODEL ACFT. THE DENSITY ALT WAS COMPUTED TO BE 2200 FT AND THERE WAS THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY IN THE AREA NORTH OF THE ARPT AND ABOUT TWO MILES SOUTH OF THE RWY. THE PLTS FLT TIME WAS NOT REPORTED AND HIS LOG BOOKS WERE NOT LOCATED.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MKC86FCD01
Event ID
20001213X33648
Case number
MKC86FCD01
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: a433c0064d87528d6047c705454ab6cee3ea3faff9af32330ff9423dae08238e; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:33:24.750Z.