CEN12CA132 · Piper PA-18-135
Piper PA-18-135 · Accident: runway excursion during landing
From 8V1 · Del Norte, CO to 8V1 · Del Norte, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA132
- 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-18-135
- 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
- N9952Q
- Operator
- Jimmy K. Adelman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 8V1 · Del Norte, COTo 8V1 · Del Norte, CO
- 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
The pilot, who held a private pilot certificate, was receiving dual instruction from a certified flight instructor (CFI) to become familiar with his newly acquired tailwheel-equipped airplane. After practicing some standard flight maneuvers at altitude, the pilot returned to the departure airport to practice full stop landings and takeoffs. The CFI demonstrated the first landing, and then the pilot performed the next four landings and takeoffs with the CFI monitoring the controls and providing assistance when necessary. The CFI stated that the pilot's first landing was normal, the second landing required minor directional control assistance, the third landing required no assistance, and the fourth landing required some assistance from the base leg to final approach but the landing and roll were normal. On the fifth landing, the pilot made a nice three-point touchdown and rolled straight ahead. During the landing roll, the airplane suddenly swerved to the right and the CFI noticed that the pilot had already applied full left corrective rudder. The CFI then applied the left brake, but the application was ineffective. He then applied right brake to slow the airplane's pending departure off the runway. The airplane nosed over and came to rest in a snow bank that was bordering the runway. The top of the rudder sustained substantial damage.
The airplane was equipped with a supplemental type certificate non-standard brake system. The CFI stated that, when he had ferried the airplane, he noted that the brake system was extremely sensitive. The CFI stated that he told the pilot early in his instruction that the use of the brakes should be avoided in normal operations due to their sensitivity. The CFI stated that he believes that the sensitivity of the brake system was a causal factor in the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control during the landing roll, which resulted in a runway excursion. Contributing to the accident were the sensitivity of the brake system and the certified flight instructor pilot's delayed remedial action.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA132
- Event ID
- 20120111X92548
- Case number
- CEN12CA132
- 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: 2601a8a1c937aaff269e2b6287ada14d5e0b1a2a7db9ccafe4a618742ddddbc4; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:03:43.000Z.