CHI08LA197 · Piper PA-28-161
Piper PA-28-161 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Sparta Fort McCoy Airport (CMY) to Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI08LA197
- 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-28-161
- 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
- N2133V
- Operator
- John Linder
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sparta Fort McCoy Airport (CMY), Fort McCoy, WITo Dane County Regional Truax Field (MSN), Madison, 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
- 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
- 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 reported that he had landed at the airport to refuel, and the accident occured during an aborted takeoff when it departed the end of the 4,708-foot by 100 feet, asphalt runway. He reported that he "filled the tanks to 28 gallons total via visual inspection." After another preflight that included "sumping" the fuel tanks, he conducted a full power engine run with the brakes held at the threshold of runway 29. He reported that the engine was performing normally during full power ground roll as the airplane's airspeed increased. He reported, "Entering ground effect in order to achieve airspeed for safe climb performance I observed only partial power." He lowered the nose and applied brakes; however, the airplane went off the end of runway 29 at about 15 mph. The pilot reported that the terrain sloped downward about 15 degrees and the grass was wet with dew. He was unable to stop the airplane before the landing gear collapsed and the wing spar was bent. The engine was test run after the accident, and it produced 2,375 RPM. The total weight of the airplane at the accident site was about 2,486 pounds. The maximum gross weight limit of the airplane was 2,440 pounds.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight planning and the pilot's delay in aborting the takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the airplane's overgross weight condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI08LA197
- Event ID
- 20080903X01368
- Case number
- CHI08LA197
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-07-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 70f60764a6d24434c28d660befe460998554733f51772f2528d83c7f0a718d7b; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:08:41.004Z.