Magnuson Airways Piper PA-12 accident
Piper PA-12 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Lime Village, AK to Lime Village, AK
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC09LA102
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N2594M
- Operator
- Magnuson Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lime Village, AKTo Lime Village, AK
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control on ground
- 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 › Miscellaneous
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and one passenger were taking off from a gravel-covered, remote off-airport site in a tailwheel-equipped airplane on a Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations Part 135 charter flight when the accident occurred. The pilot related that as the airplane accelerated, it began to turn sharply to the right, and towards a stand of trees. The airplane’s right wing struck the stand of trees, which pivoted it to the right where it nosed over, sustaining substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage. A postaccident inspection revealed that the passenger, seated in the rear of the airplane, inadvertently stepped on the right, rear-mounted dual brake pedal, as the pilot began his takeoff run. The pilot stated that there were no preaccident mechanical problems with the airplane, and that the accident could have been prevented if he had removed or covered the rear-mounted dual brake pedals.
Probable cause
The passenger's inadvertent interference with, and application of the right brake pedal during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC09LA102
- Event ID
- 20090918X20657
- Case number
- ANC09LA102
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-09-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 03c5c0559045b66c50bf2c7e83c789c0149d5cc5e97a148f20f4f0f4dd043aec; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:19:25.818Z.