NYC84FA158 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From 1N1 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84FA158
- 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-18-150
- 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
- N4410Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1N1To 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
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flight control, elevator › Disconnected
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Shirley, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CLIMBING WITH A GLIDER IN TOW, THE TOW ACFT PITCHED NOSE UP. THE GLIDER & TOW PLTS RELEASED THE TOW ROPE & THE GLIDER PLT LANDED SAFELY. THE TOW ACFT MAINTAINED A NOSE HIGH ATTITUDE, STALLED, THEN ENTERED AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT & CRASHED. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE LOWER ELEVATOR CONTROL CABLE WAS NOT ATTACHED TO THE CONTROL HORN. THE ATTACH BOLT WAS LOCATED WITH ONLY ITS TIP IN THE HOLE OF THE LOWER CONTROL HORN. THE ASSOCIATED NUT & COTTER PIN WERE NOT FOUND. THE ACFT LOG SHOWED THAT AN ANNUAL INSPECTION WAS PERFORMED ABOUT 30 FLT HRS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. AT THAT TIME, THE CONTROLS WERE LUBRICATED & CHECKED & THE AIRFRAME WAS RE-COVERED WITH FABRIC. THE PLT'S LAST BIENNIAL FLT REVIEW WAS ON 2/7/82.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84FA158
- Event ID
- 20001214X39708
- Case number
- NYC84FA158
- 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: 2b1258ba9c1225540dad01fd63843156d697d7b7c2dab37f2557fde39dbf0565; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:33:00.797Z.