ERA12CA015 · Piper PA-18-150
Piper PA-18-150 · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during initial climb
From Elizabethton Municipal Airport (0A9) to Elizabethton Municipal Airport (0A9)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA015
- 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
- N3491Z
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Elizabethton Municipal Airport (0A9), Elizabethton, TNTo Elizabethton Municipal Airport (0A9), Elizabethton, TN
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After an unremarkable preflight inspection and preflight engine run-up, the pilot, who was a friend of the pilot/part owner in the passenger seat, departed with a short-field technique and entered a steep climb. He then pushed forward on the flight control stick to lower the nose to a straight and level flight attitude; the airplane then began to sink. The pilot pushed the control stick forward to gain airspeed and ensured that the engine was at full power. The left wing dipped, followed by the right wing, which dropped sharply. The pilot applied full left rudder and full left aileron, and the right wing started to recover; however, there was insufficient altitude and the airplane impacted the ground. Witnesses stated that they observed the airplane take off and climb in about a 45-degree nose-high attitude. They further stated that, as the airplane gained altitude, it struggled to gain airspeed as it climbed to about 100 feet above ground level. The wings dipped and wobbled before the airplane struck the ground.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain airspeed during the initial climb after takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA015
- Event ID
- 20111008X33525
- Case number
- ERA12CA015
- 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: 60e39428a7cfff7555d0facd47502f3eb774c84ff0f7ace7c48a51f1daa98779; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:49:16.887Z.