CEN11LA642 · Piper PA16
Piper PA16 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Muskegon County Airport (MKG) to Grand Haven Memorial Airpark (3GM)
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
- CEN11LA642
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Piper PA16
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA16
- 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
- N5383H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Muskegon County Airport (MKG), Muskegan, MITo Grand Haven Memorial Airpark (3GM), Grand Haven, MI
- 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
- 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 › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting to take off on an instructional flight when the tailwheel-equipped airplane veered and ground looped toward the right before it nosed over. The pilot stated that he did not apply left rudder soon enough to avoid the loss of directional control. The flight instructor stated that he attempted to apply corrective control input, but the pilot was applying opposite control input and did not reduce engine power as he was instructed.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control during the takeoff roll and the flight instructor's inability to apply remedial action due to the opposite corrective control inputs by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN11LA642
- Event ID
- 20110914X74317
- Case number
- CEN11LA642
- 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. 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: 47a778feaa1a8b4885e0603177cc48678673664a31763eebbeedb7dd9c934542; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:44:11.758Z.