CHI06CA172 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Sawyer County Airport (HYR) to Miinong, WI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA172
- 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
- N82223
- Operator
- Thomas A Holdeman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sawyer County Airport (HYR), Hayward, WITo Miinong, WI
- 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
- Approach · VFR go-around
- 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 collision with object
- 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; Tree(s)
- 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
- Flt control syst, elevator control › Restricted
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
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 was substantially damaged when it impacted trees and terrain during a go-around. The pilot and passenger reported minor injuries. The pilot stated that he entered the traffic pattern at the intended destination. He noted that on final approach he applied full flaps and the approach appeared "OK." However, as the airplane crossed the runway threshold, the pilot thought that the airspeed was "a bit fast" and he elected to execute a go-around. He applied full throttle and raised the flaps one notch. He stated, "The stick felt jammed. I could not get the stick forward enough to lower the nose to accelerate." The airplane remained in a nose high climb attitude. The pilot stated that the airspeed decayed until he felt a pre-stall buffet. He noted, "I felt trees to my right . . . would be better than the highway to land on as we were stalling and were going to drop. We mushed into the trees and came down to [the] ground." The pilot reported that before the flight he had placed a digital camera in the front seat back pocket. He stated that the before takeoff flight control check was normal and that the initial takeoff on the accident flight was without incident. A post accident inspection revealed no anomalies with the flight control system. The inspection also revealed that forward travel of the rear seat control stick was restricted when it came in contact with an object the size of the digital camera placed in the seat back pocket.
Probable cause
Restriction of the elevator control system due to the camera placed in the seat back pocket and the inadvertent stall/mush condition encountered during the go-around. The trees impacted after the stall were a contributing factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA172
- Event ID
- 20060728X01045
- Case number
- CHI06CA172
- 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: 1459b3ad1007a8ea212ddaf5cc9b03331e9ffe2e5ac1937705c444385b47117b; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:44:28.944Z.