LAX04CA093 · Piper PA-28-181
Sabena Airline Training Center Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Scottsdale Airport (SDL) to an unrecorded destination
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04CA093
- 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-28-181 Possible conflict
- 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
- N4160A
- Operator
- Sabena Airline Training Center
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Scottsdale Airport (SDL), Scottsdale, AZTo 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, 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 airplane collided with a series of objects following a loss of directional control while on the landing roll. The student pilot failed to retract the flaps prior to attempting the takeoff portion of a touch-and-go. The nose wheel remained in contact with the runway after the main landing gear lifted off, and the airplane swerved to the left. The airplane, with both main landing gear airborne, veered off to the left side of the runway. The right main landing gear collided with a taxiway identifier sign. The airplane continued across the dirt infield and the parallel taxiway until the wingtip collided with a bay door on a tee hangar. It continued on to the next bay of the same hangar and collided with a parked, unoccupied airplane. The pilot did not report any mechanical problems with the airplane prior to the accident.
Probable cause
failure of the pilot to maintain directional control on the takeoff roll. A factor in the accident was the pilot's failure to retract the flaps.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04CA093
- Event ID
- 20040203X00157
- Case number
- LAX04CA093
- 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: 9646d0b4110408ec1545ae17a594f7c1f93f1adbbff5bc877e1e38f0982e2808; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:01:25.603Z.