MKC82DA097 · Piper PA-25-235
Walts Ag Service Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: loss of engine power during initial climb
From 4V7 · Kimball, NE to 4V7 · Kimball, NE
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC82DA097
- 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-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
- N6997Z
- Operator
- Walts Ag Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 4V7 · Kimball, NETo 4V7 · Kimball, NE
- 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
- Loss of engine power
- 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
- Miscellaneous › Undetermined
- Pilot in command › Aborted takeoff, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOADED WITH 100 GALLONS OF 2-4-D AND 40 GALLONS OF FUEL. DURING THE PREFLIGHT RUN-UP CHECK, THE PILOT NOTED A MAG DROP OF 225 RPM. HE STATED THAT LEANING THE FUEL MIXTURE CLEARED THE EXCESSIVE DECREASE IN RPM, AND HE OBSERVED 2500 RPM ON THE ENGINE TACHOMETER DURING THE TAKEOFF ROLL. THE PILOT SAID THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT SEEM TO WANT TO GAIN SPEED LIKE IT SHOULD, AND HE ROLLED ABOUT 2700 FT BEFORE LIFT-OFF. HE REPORTED THAT AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE AIRCRAFT DID NOT GAIN SPEED AS HE CLIMBED TO ABOUT 75 FT AGL, AND THE ENGINE POPPED AND SPUTTERED AS THE PLANE SETTLED. DURING A LANDING IN A SOFT FIELD, THE AIRCRAFT NOSED OVER AND THE PILOT WAS SOAKED WITH THE 2-4-D CHEMICAL. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT HE WOULD HAVE DUMPED HIS LOAD IF HE HAD A LITTLE MORE TIME. AN EXAMINATION AND OPERATIONAL CHECK OF THE ENGINE REVEALED NO PRECRASH MALFUNCTION OF FAILURE. THE TAKEOFF PERFORMANCE DATA SHOWED THAT THE ACFT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO CLEAR A 50 FT OBSTACLE IN 1350 FT. THE DENSITY ALTITUDE WAS ABOUT 6500 FT MSL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC82DA097
- Event ID
- 20020917X03813
- Case number
- MKC82DA097
- 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: 58b815ac091b22af920feb21b47d93c9a31aa0f60494cc1f23f2f70cb22df7ea; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:02:51.960Z.