CEN13CA203 · Aviat A-1B
Aviat A-1B · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Moore County Airport (KDUX) to Sunray Airport (X43)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13CA203
- 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
Aviat A-1B
- Aircraft type
- Aviat A-1
- 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
- N132AA
- Operator
- howard L. Patton · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Moore County Airport (KDUX), Dumas, TXTo Sunray Airport (X43), Sunray, TX
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated he ended a flying lesson with a student early because the wind speed was increasing and it was getting too turbulent. He intended to fly his airplane back to his home airport, but waited 5 to 10 minutes until the wind calmed down to 10 to 12 knots. He stated that the approach end of the runway was somewhat sheltered by buildings and hangars. During the takeoff roll, a “strong” gust of wind resulted in the airplane becoming airborne prematurely, with the right wing raised 45 to 50 degrees. The pilot was able to level the wings before the airplane settled back to the runway; however, the airplane traveled about 100 feet off the side of the runway where it contacted a drainage ditch and nosed over, resulting in substantial damage to the left wing, vertical stabilizer and rudder, and fuselage. The takeoff was being made on runway 19. The local wind reported 13 minutes before the accident was from 230 degrees at 13 knots gusting to 20 knots. The wind reported 7 minutes after the accident was from 280 degrees at 23 knots gusting to 28 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane while taking off in gusty crosswind conditions. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to takeoff instead of waiting to ensure that the wind velocity had decreased.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13CA203
- Event ID
- 20130322X40431
- Case number
- CEN13CA203
- 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, coordinates. 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: bf750988c7a1019d287c6345ccf7881147dd69fba90f7ee670ccf6b803d11649; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:09:24.484Z.