CHI07CA306 · Piper PA-12
Super Cub Flyers Piper PA-12 · Accident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Detroit Lakes, MN to Long Lake, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA306
- 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-12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N2560M
- Operator
- Super Cub Flyers
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Detroit Lakes, MNTo Long Lake, MN
- 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 · rejected 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Aircraft performance, climb capability › Reduced
- Pilot in command › Aircraft weight and balance, exceeded
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flare, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper climb rate, not obtained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The float plane was operated as a rental airplane when it received substantial damage during a hard landing on a lake following an aborted takeoff. The pilot stated that he took off toward the south and that the airplane became airborne "somewhat earlier than [he] anticipated and began to drift to the left." The pilot stated that he saw a peninsula along the flight path and was unsure of the float plane's ability to climb or turn to the right "properly" to avoid it. He then performed an aborted takeoff at 10-15 feet above the lake. He stated that the landing was "firm/hard," and the right fuselage strut partially collapsed into the right float upon landing. The pilot stated that if the float plane was aligned more to the right at lift off, he would have been "OK." He stated that he anticipated a left to right wind but encountered a right to left wind. The airplane rental operator stated that the pilot had two 5-gallon containers of fuel in the rear baggage compartment, and the airplane was over gross weight.
Probable cause
The reduced airplane climb performance capability resulting in the pilot not obtaining a proper climb rate during takeoff and the inadequate flare by the pilot during the aborted takeoff. Additional causes were the inadequate preflight planning/preparation by the pilot, the airplane weight and balance exceeded by the pilot, and the inadequate compensation for wind conditions by they pilot. A contributing factor was the low airspeed at the time of the aborted takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA306
- Event ID
- 20071029X01683
- Case number
- CHI07CA306
- 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: 751a27a44f76058fd6feea01c6b97713688013185712a746b78ae436359563b6; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:23:47.293Z.