CEN12LA381 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From McIntosh Airport (OH59) to Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12LA381
- 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 J3C-65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N7075H
- Operator
- Calvert Jared C
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McIntosh Airport (OH59), Farmersville, OHTo Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH), Springfield, OH
- 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 in flight
- 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 power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane departed with a left crosswind that was 15 knots gusting to 20 knots. After liftoff, the wind pushed the airplane to the right of the runway. The pilot leveled the airplane and continued on a heading 45 degrees from the runway heading. The pilot reported the airplane “felt underpowered” and the tachometer was indicating 2,050 rpm. He noted a line of trees in front of him that he was not going to be able to clear. He then made an abrupt turn toward a more heavily wooded area. He stated he decided to contact the tree tops in a large wooded area instead of contacting a single tree. The airplane contacted the tree tops and descended to the terrain. A postaccident inspection of the airplane and engine did not reveal any mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have resulted in degraded engine power as reported by the pilot. The accident airport elevation was 914 feet. Based on the recorded weather data, the corresponding density altitude was about 3,265 feet and carburetor icing should not have been a factor. High density altitude can reduce an airplane's climb capability.
Probable cause
The pilot did not maintain directional control of the airplane on takeoff after noting reduced engine power in high density altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12LA381
- Event ID
- 20120619X52353
- Case number
- CEN12LA381
- 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: 3a53c5220b71a9623f3c24d3c8315a234f63c8dc7cccc4050a5efa3dbecfb49b; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:34:35.285Z.