ATL82FKJ12 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From 21A · Alabaster, AL to 21A · Alabaster, AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL82FKJ12
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N42799
- Operator
- Don Smith
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 21A · Alabaster, ALTo 21A · Alabaster, AL
- 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
- 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, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING AN AIR SHOW, THE AIRCRAFT WAS OBSERVED FLYING SLOWLY OVER THE RUNWAY ON A SOUTHERLY HEADING AT ABOUT 200 TO 250 FT AGL. FULL LEFT RUDDER WAS APPLIED ALONG WITH FULL UP ELEVATOR AND THE PLANE ENTERED A SPIN. AFTER ONE TURN, FULL OPPOSITE RUDDER WAS APPLIED BUT THE ELEVATOR REMAINED IN THE FULL UP POSITION. THE PLANE STRUCK THE RUNWAY ON A NORTHERLY HEADING IN ABOUT A 50 DEGREE, NOSE LOW ATTITUDE. AN EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT AND ENGINE REVEALED NO PREIMPACT FAILURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL82FKJ12
- Event ID
- 20020917X02869
- Case number
- ATL82FKJ12
- 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: b5015e14febdce872133751a434c4c9c65e22a14df78dfc3b4a02343f4f4605f; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:22:29.416Z.