CHI05CA022 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of control on ground/water while standing
From Morris, IL to Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09)
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
- CHI05CA022
- 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
- N2245M
- Operator
- Dennis K. Richardson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morris, ILTo Morris Municipal Airport James R. Washburn field (C09), Morris, IL
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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 › Parking brakes, not used
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Wheel chocks, not used
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 three airplanes that were parked on the ramp. The pilot reported he inadvertently left the master switch on after landing. He reported the battery was dead when he went to start the airplane so he decided to hand prop the engine. The pilot stated he tied the tail down using a ramp tie town rope and set the throttle forward about one-quarter of an inch. He stated he started the airplane and was walking around the wing to enter the airplane when the tie down rope broke. The airplane started moving and as he tried to grab the door handle the horizontal stabilator struck him, knocking him to the ground. The airplane continued to the west where it contacted the left wing of a Diamond DA40. The airplane continued westbound across the ramp where its left wing contacted a light pole turning the airplane around 180 degrees. The airplane then traveled east, back across the ramp, where it contacted the tail of a Cessna 150E. The airplane came to rest after contacting the nose and left wing of a Grumman AA-1B. Post accident inspection of the accident site revealed the tail tie down rope broke with one end still attached to the tie down ring on the airplane, and the other end attached to the pavement tie down ring. The pilot stated he did not set the airplane's brakes nor did he place chocks under the wheels prior to hand propping the engine. The airport manager stated the airport does not supply tie down ropes.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning in that he failed to assure that the airplane was properly secured prior to hand propping the engine. Factors associated with the accident were the broken tie down rope and the other airplanes which were contacted.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI05CA022
- Event ID
- 20041206X01929
- Case number
- CHI05CA022
- 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: f5f3907f7866782219fa0f27fb66eb56837bfa9746c09c398f42fd50ebe3ad08; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:06:45.556Z.