CHI04CA266 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Harrison Airport (MU33) to Waterloo Regional Airport (ALO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI04CA266
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N8275W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harrison Airport (MU33), Hurdland, MOTo Waterloo Regional Airport (ALO), Waterloo, IA
- 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
- 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/mush
- 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 › Aborted takeoff, not performed
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vr), not maintained
- 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 impacted a parked aircraft during an attempted takeoff. A video of the accident was obtained from a witness. The video showed the accident airplane over-rotating during the takeoff roll that resulted in a tailstrike and the nose landing gear settling back to the runway. The airplane then yawed to the right with all three landing gear still in contact with the runway. The airplane then rotated again and climbed about three feet before settling back to runway. The airplane then went off camera, but when the camera reacquired the airplane it was airborne again, traveling off the right side of the runway. The airplane impacted a parked airplane that was positioned off the right side of the runway, near the departure end. The pilot stated that during the takeoff roll the airplane attained about 65 mph prior to rotation. The pilot reported that the airplane became airborne and he subsequently lowered the nose to gain additional airspeed, but the airplane settled and touchdown on the runway and "slowed down." The piloted stated that he "pulled off the ground again" but there were trees off the end of the runway so he decided to "abort the takeoff." The pilot reported that the airplane "stalled and veered to the right side of the runway" and "clipped the nose of the parked aircraft." According to takeoff performance calculations, the airplane had sufficient runway to perform the takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain proper airspeed and directional control during the takeoff and his failure to properly abort the takeoff after the encountered tailstrike. A factor to the accident was the stall/mush encountered during the attempted takeoff and the parked airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI04CA266
- Event ID
- 20041022X01683
- Case number
- CHI04CA266
- 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: d9a3f40e7b055e6ada0955d8ab70c538fca401a6d082835504e4e9f2281b59b8; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:08:22.109Z.