SEA03LA111 · Piper PA-11
Piper PA-11 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Pilster Ranch, MT to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA03LA111
- 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-11
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-11
- 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
- N4565M
- Operator
- Pilster, Lane R. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pilster Ranch, MTTo not recorded
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot, who had logged at least 93 hours of flight time in the accident aircraft (total time), was engaged in livestock spotting at low altitude (200 feet above ground) in turbulent conditions with a wind out of the northwest estimated at 20 knots. During a 40-degree angle of bank, right 180 degree turn, the aircraft's angle of bank exceeded 90 degrees and the pilot applied full left aileron and rudder with no effect. The aircraft continued a rolling right descent and when about 80-90 feet above ground, the roll reversed into a left roll during which the left wingtip and nose impacted the ground. The aircraft cartwheeled counter-clockwise 270 degrees to a stop during which the engine separated from the airframe. A post-crash fire consumed the aircraft.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain adequate flying airspeed in a turn while maneuvering close to the ground resulting in a stall condition. A contributing factor was the turbulent wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA03LA111
- Event ID
- 20030624X00948
- Case number
- SEA03LA111
- 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: f21acff520023b0d8355c8073ac42d4d945721fb7a9cdba2b4ca24673e6e158d; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:07:08.125Z.