ATL05FA086 · Piper PA-18-135
Piper PA-18-135 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Conway, SC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL05FA086
- 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
- 2 · 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-18-135
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N9951Q
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Conway, SCTo 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
Two witnesses observed the banner tow airplane release its banner aerial sign at an airstrip adjacent to a highway. The airplane made a steep pitch up attitude followed by a steep left turn towards the highway at an altitude lower than the treetops. The left wing was described by one witness in a near vertical position with the ground before the nose of the airplane pitched down and the airplane collided with the ground. The OWNERS HANDBOOK, states in SECTION II, TAKE-OFF, CLIMB, AND STALLS,…"The gross weight power off stalling speed with full flaps in the Super Cub 135 is 38 M.P.H.; with flaps up the stalling speed increases about 4 M.P.H." Examination of the airframe, flight controls, engine assembly and accessories revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering after releasing a banner aerial sign, resulting in an inadvertent stall and collision with the ground. A factor in the accident was the flight instructor's improper supervision of the pilot receiving instruction.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL05FA086
- Event ID
- 20050601X00693
- Case number
- ATL05FA086
- 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: 5ddc102502226680902af920ea6242679d9600bb31da627f8cb2e4d1c6784330; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:02:35.473Z.