SEA05LA147 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object during takeoff
From Yellow Pine, ID to McCall Municipal Airport (KMYL)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA05LA147
- 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-18-150
- 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
- N721JW
- Operator
- Larry K. Carpenter · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yellow Pine, IDTo McCall Municipal Airport (KMYL), McCall, ID
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During the takeoff roll at the remote grass airstrip, the aircraft's right main landing gear hit a mound of dirt created by a burrowing animal, and the aircraft suddenly veered to the right. The pilot applied left rudder to correct the situation, but he was unable to get the aircraft back on takeoff heading prior to it departing the right side of the airstrip surface. Soon after departing the takeoff surface, the aircraft's landing gear rolled over some nearby large rocks, and the right wing impacted a tree that was located near the side of the airstrip. The pilot did not see the dirt mound during the takeoff roll because it was hidden by tall grass/weeds, and he had not walked the length of the 1,100 foot remote runway looking for obstructions prior to takeoff. According to a note in the Idaho Airports Guide, the surface of this runway is rough and subject to ongoing deterioration, and its usage is limited to "highly experienced" mountain pilots.
Probable cause
The pilot's selection of unsuitable terrain for takeoff, and his failure to maintain directional control after the aircraft's right main gear contacted a small dirt mound during the takeoff roll at the remote grass airstrip. Factors include the pilot's failure to walk the length of the runway during his pre-flight preparation to insure that it was clear of objects, a hidden object on the takeoff surface (the mound), high vegetation on the runway surface, and trees near the side borders of the airstrip.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA05LA147
- Event ID
- 20050801X01128
- Case number
- SEA05LA147
- 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: ff16c59cfa0a4695615d11aa8437174c9a6ada3ba548f56c4c51c79ce20e31f6; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:38:10.388Z.