CEN09LA467 · Taylorcraft BF12 65
Taylorcraft BF12 65 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb
From Sawyer, MI (private airstrip) to Unknown
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA467
- 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
Taylorcraft BF12 65
- Aircraft type
- Taylorcraft BF12
- 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
- N36299
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sawyer, MI (private airstrip)To Unknown
- 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
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- 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 attempted a takeoff on a 1,400-foot-long grass runway and during initial climb the airplane's climb "stagnated." The pilot lowered the nose to increase controllability and speed, but there was no apparent improvement. The airplane descended and impacted terrain, which collapsed the main landing gear and spun the airplane around. The airplane sustained damage to the wing spar and empennage. Postaccident inspection of the airplane revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The takeoff weight, which was near the maximum gross weight of the airplane, the lack of a headwind, and the grass runway surface would have negatively affected the airplane's takeoff performance.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed while taking off from a short, grass runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA467
- Event ID
- 20090728X30057
- Case number
- CEN09LA467
- 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: e8eaa46ad3e3d65cc693b5e9d5b4a100c0d47a0e792606f2ead38c0600057376; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:02:43.661Z.