IAD05LA137 · Piper PA-24-260
Piper PA-24-260 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during takeoff
From Seneca County Airport (16G) to Seneca County Airport (16G)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD05LA137
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-24-260
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-24
- 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
- N9311P
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seneca County Airport (16G), Tiffin, OHTo Seneca County Airport (16G), Tiffin, OH
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not complied with
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
When the pilot arrived at the airport, the weather included an estimated ceiling "about treetop level," and the visibility was about 1/2 mile due to fog. The pilot carried on a conversation with the airport manager for about an hour, then drove over to his hangar to "wash the windshield of his airplane." Witnesses then heard the airplane depart, but could not see it due to fog and the low ceiling. One witness said, "I just heard him takeoff. I was surprised that anyone would takeoff in those weather conditions." The published takeoff minimums for the airport were ceiling 300 feet, with 1 mile visibility. The airplane impacted trees and terrain about 1 minute after takeoff, and pieces of angularly cut wood were found along the 400-foot wreckage path. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any pre-impact failures or malfunctions. Interviews and FAA records showed that the pilot was instrument rated, but did not obtain a weather briefing or file a flight plan prior to departure. Toxicological testing of the pilot revealed the presence of prescription stimulants and antidepressants. The extent to which these drugs may have affected the pilot could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to takeoff in weather below the published takeoff minimums, which resulted in spatial disorientation and the airplane's collision with trees and terrain. Factors in the accident were the instrument meteorological conditions, and the pilot's inadequate weather evaluation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD05LA137
- Event ID
- 20051004X01568
- Case number
- IAD05LA137
- 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: 3536fc96120e46211f24c4f3b34a1ba8214fe493943367bbf85f24aac47ea910; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:53:04.178Z.