FTW83LA057 · Piper PA-28-180
Altus Flying Service Piper PA-28-180 · Accident during initial climb
From Dick's Airport (OK02) to Altus, OK
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW83LA057
- 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-28-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N9317J
- Operator
- Altus Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dick's Airport (OK02), Grandfield, OKTo Altus, OK
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Passenger › Seat belt, not used
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, A CHILD, WHO HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO OCCUPY THE BAGGAGE COMPARTMENT DURING THE TAKEOFF, FELL FROM THE ACFT WHEN THE DOOR OPENED IN FLIGHT. THE CHILD'S GRANDFATHER, WHO OCCUPIED THE REAR SEAT, ALLOWED THE YOUNGSTER TO CLIMB INTO THE BAGGAGE COMPARTMENT BECAUSE HE WOULD NOT STAY IN HIS SEAT BELT. WITH THE CARGO DOOR IN THE LATCHED POSITION IT WOULD POP OPEN IF HIT SHARPLY IN THE CENTER OF THE DOOR FROM INSIDE THE ACFT. THE DOOR IS NOT REINFORCED & IS NOT DESIGNED TO WITHSTAND FORCES FROM INSIDE THE ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW83LA057
- Event ID
- 20020917X04716
- Case number
- FTW83LA057
- 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, damage. 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: bf77a4c6ede51737e7782f5b2deda44c6bc460b23f7d8cf899242ea36bc5dfef; retrieved 2026-09-21T07:23:30.104Z.