CHI08CA206 · Piper PA-28-235
Piper PA-28-235 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Lowell City Airport (24C) to Clintonville Municipal Airport (CLI)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08CA206
- 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-28-235
- 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
- N8942W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lowell City Airport (24C), Lowell, MITo Clintonville Municipal Airport (CLI), Clintonville, 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- Defining eventThe 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
- 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 Narrative disagrees
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had performed 56 flights in the accident airplane from the airport in "similar" atmospheric conditions at airplane weights that equaled or exceeded the accident flight takeoff. The pilot stated that the "numerous" trees surrounding the airport and the departure end of each runway are "extremely dangerous" and provide "few, if any, options" for an uneventful aborted takeoff. During the accident takeoff on runway 30 (2,394 feet by 48 feet, dry asphalt), the airplane performed within the pilot’s expectations, but after rotation, the airplane was not climbing "normally" nor was it accelerating to best angle climb speed at the rate he previously experienced. The pilot then aborted the takeoff while the airplane was within a "few" feet above the runway because he did not want to risk hitting the trees at the departure end of the runway. The pilot was uninjured and the passenger received minor injuries. The airplane overran the runway with the application of "full" braking and impacted the trees. A post crash fire then ensued consuming the airplane. The pilot stated that he can only "speculate" that something changed after takeoff rotation that affected airplane performance. The airplane flight manual states that the takeoff distance over a 50-foot obstacle is about halfway down the runway and the calculated landing ground roll is within the remaining runway distance. The pilot stated that he used 10 degrees of flaps for the takeoff rather than 25 degrees of flaps cited in the airplane flight manual for a short field takeoff. There is no takeoff performance data based upon a 10-degree flap setting cited in the airplane flight manual.
Probable cause
The inadequate preflight planning/preparation and the short field takeoff procedure not followed by the pilot. An additional cause was the delayed aborted takeoff by the pilot. A contributing factor was the trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08CA206
- Event ID
- 20080822X01288
- Case number
- CHI08CA206
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 787559b6dbd661cdb27a8c44b1f654fd8e16fda42668e8d0751fc965a3822b28; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:05:14.205Z.