CHI03LA064 · Piper PA-24-180
Piper PA-24-180 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during initial climb
From Kingman Airport Clyde Cessna Field (9K8) to Halstead Airport (SN05)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA064
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-24-180
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N5681P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kingman Airport Clyde Cessna Field (9K8), Kingman, KSTo Halstead Airport (SN05), Halstead, KS
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Soft field takeoff/procedure, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft was substantially damaged when it impacted terrain shortly after takeoff. Upon return to the airport after a local flight, they landed to the south and taxied back to the departure end of the runway. The instructor stated that the wind was light, but it was still out of the south, as it had been all afternoon. He noted that a soft field technique was employed on the accident takeoff and the full runway length was used. He stated: "Just over half way down [the] runway -- normal acceleration degraded. We were past abort point and due to dangerous road area elected to fly", although the aircraft was "behind the power curve." After liftoff, the instructor stated the aircraft did not level out very much and was at a relatively high pitch attitude. Initially the aircraft climbed to approximately 40 feet above ground level. However, it settled lower and was "bobbling" in and out of ground effect as they approached the end of the runway. The flight instructor reported that, due to an inability to climb, they were forced to fly under a set of power lines at the end of the runway. The power lines ran along a roadway, which bordered the south side of the airport. He stated that they "could not accelerate" and were "unable to climb." The decision was made to cut the power and impact (landing) was made before reaching more obstructions (trees)." Upon exiting the aircraft, he noted that the wind was now from the north. Both pilots indicated that there were no problems with the aircraft or engine, either prior to, or at the time of the accident. The FAA Airplane Flying Handbook, concerning soft field takeoffs, states: "After becoming airborne, the nose should be lowered very gently with the wheels clear of the surface to allow the airplane to accelerate. ... An attempt to climb prematurely or too steeply may cause the airplane to settle back to the surface as a result of losing the benefit of ground effect."
Probable cause
Failure by the flight crew to execute an aborted takeoff when acceleration degraded and the improper soft field takeoff procedure as flown by the private pilot. Contributing factors were inadequate supervision by the flight instructor and the tailwind encountered on takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA064
- Event ID
- 20030212X00204
- Case number
- CHI03LA064
- 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, coordinates. 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: 72b12658866c0a7fe936ae6db005a972c1b7836a719842f74f6a702eef1f45ed; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:37:05.079Z.