WPR12CA083 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA) to San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12CA083
- 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-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- 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
- N4297S
- Operator
- Marco A. Perez · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, CATo San Gabriel Valley Airport (EMT), El Monte, CA
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after aligning the airplane with the runway centerline and adding full power for takeoff, the airplane accelerated and then began to veer left. The pilot immediately added right rudder to correct for the deviation, but the airplane did not respond to the control input. He then reduced power to abort the takeoff, but, seeing runway signs in his path, he added full power again in an attempt to get airborne to avoid colliding with the signs. After becoming airborne, the airplane impacted a sign with its right main landing gear and right stabilator, which resulted in substantial damage to the airplane. Neither the pilot nor a Federal Aviation Administration inspector, who examined the airplane after the accident, reported any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot did not maintain directional control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12CA083
- Event ID
- 20120127X53748
- Case number
- WPR12CA083
- 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: eebd50fde1a04ab0c13d7aed1f68f5f043f2448a46229126acacc3a20ae9799d; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:07:23.033Z.