NYC03LA071 · Piper PA-22-150
Piper PA-22-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Bolton Field (TZR) to Anderson Regional Airport (AND)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03LA071
- 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-22-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-22
- 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
- N2968Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bolton Field (TZR), Columbus, OHTo Anderson Regional Airport (AND), Anderson, SC
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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 control on ground/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
- Copilot/second pilot › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The certified flight instructor (CFI) was providing flight instruction to the private pilot/owner of the tail-wheeled airplane. The CFI stated that the private pilot began the takeoff roll from the 5,500-foot-long, 100-foot-wide, asphalt runway. The airplane was almost at takeoff speed when it began to veer to the right. The CFI took control of the airplane, and attempted to correct; however, the airplane departed the right side of the runway, and ground-looped. The left main landing gear collapsed and the left wing struck the ground. Examination of the runway revealed a tire mark began about 350 feet from the beginning of the runway. A second parallel tire mark began to the left of the first tire mark, about 675 feet from the beginning of the runway, and both tire marks continued to the accident site. The airplane came to rest in a grass area, approximately 1,132 feet from the beginning of the runway. Both pilots were unsure if the private pilot had his feet positioned on the rudder pedals in such a way that he inadvertently applied brakes during the takeoff. Winds at the time of the accident were calm.
Probable cause
The pilot under instruction's failure to maintain directional control, and the flight instructor's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03LA071
- Event ID
- 20030326X00390
- Case number
- NYC03LA071
- 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: 3019e58363518e3c9271cf8fe8f90bedbe4db9fab208bba78536cc12846e5029; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:29:14.610Z.