CEN10CA174 · Cessna 140
Cessna 140 · Accident: abrupt maneuver during takeoff
From Malta, OH (private airstrip) to Morgan County Regional Airport (I71)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10CA174
- 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
Cessna 140
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 140
- 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
- N2082N
- Operator
- Daniel P. Brewer · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Malta, OH (private airstrip)To Morgan County Regional Airport (I71), McConnelsville, OH
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 › Action/decision
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 stated that he taxied both ways on the grass airstrip so that he could evaluate the condition of the "moist" grass and the winds prior to takeoff. He determined that a light, gusty crosswind existed and the slope of the terrain favored runway 24. The pilot performed a short/soft takeoff on runway 24 and the airplane lifted into ground effect at 45 mph. He stated that he did not notice the engine rpms, but the airplane did not seem to be accelerating. The pilot aborted the takeoff to avoid contacting trees at the end of the airstrip. He stated that upon landing he held full back pressure on the control yoke and applied the brakes. The airplane subsequently nosed over on the runway, resulting in substantial damage to the vertical stabilizer and rudder. A wind sock was present on the airstrip. Just prior to the accident, the closest weather reporting station, 22 miles away, reported winds from 070 degrees at 4 knots. The winds reported 53 minutes after the accident were from 030 degrees at 10 knots. The gross weight of the airplane at the time of the accident was about 3.5 pounds under the maximum gross weight. The pilot purchased the airplane about 3 weeks prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to take off in conditions that exceeded the climb capability of the airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA174
- Event ID
- 20100324X44647
- Case number
- CEN10CA174
- 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: e3a0b344e7ab5975ffd88661d771892c65acf172b71d37e9b3b196c74a0a1d24; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:47:16.331Z.