CEN10CA193 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Brook Park, MN (private airstrip) to Brook Park, MN (private airstrip)
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
- CEN10CA193
- 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-18-150
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N7884D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From Brook Park, MN (private airstrip)To Brook Park, MN (private airstrip)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 › 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 after a normal touchdown the airplane drifted toward the right side of the runway. He attempted to correct for the right drift with a left rudder input, but the wind suddenly changed direction and the airplane veered to the left. He applied full brakes to stop the airplane from leaving the runway, but in the process the airplane nosed over. The vertical stabilizer, rudder, both wings, and cabin structure were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation of the airplane. About 4 minutes before the accident, a local weather station reported that the prevailing wind was out of the southwest at 4 knots. About 16 minutes after the accident, the same weather station reported that the wind speed had increased to 8 knots, with 14 knot wind gusts.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during landing rollout in variable wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10CA193
- Event ID
- 20100406X94150
- Case number
- CEN10CA193
- 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 2010-04-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 069424826e55aa9268d218ff93f0f145c224e09e9e45113d07934e815d147d7b; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:49:53.992Z.