DFW06CA096 · Piper PA-28-140
Piper PA-28-140 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather during initial climb
From K3M0 · Lakeview, AR to Boone County Airport (KHRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW06CA096
- 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-28-140
- 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
- N4316T
- Operator
- Mark D WIllis · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From K3M0 · Lakeview, ARTo Boone County Airport (KHRO), Harrison, AR
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 700-hour private pilot of the single-engine airplane collided with trees and terrain at the departure end of runway 06 while attempting to depart the 3,200-foot long, by 55-foot wide turf runway with a 17 knot tailwind. The pilot reported that he encountered a wind reversal at treetop level. The pilot further reported that the airplane began "mushing forward on the edge of a stall" while in a nose high attitude. The airplane subsequently collided with a tree and came to rest in a large tree. At 1153, a weather reporting facility located approximately five miles east of the accident site reported wind from 240 degrees at 11 knots, gusting to 17 knots. The pilot added that the "visibility was good, but the atmosphere was turbulent and unstable." Runway 06 features 30-foot tall trees on the left side and the departure end on the runway. The published airport procedures for obstacle clearance at the accident airport was to use of runway 06 for departures and runway 24 for arrivals.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate weather evaluation and failure to maintain airspeed, which resulted in an inadvertent stall. A contributing factor was the prevailing tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW06CA096
- Event ID
- 20060509X00529
- Case number
- DFW06CA096
- 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: 01327d684e699135ee35aa139745a05b2790bbc46adba019bdfabf27d3fda487; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:48:18.414Z.