CEN13FA241 · Piper PA-28R-180
Pro-Flite Piper PA-28R-180 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Karl Stefan Memorial Airport (OFK) to Millard Airport (MLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA241
- 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
- 2 · 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-28R-180
- 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
- N3970T
- Operator
- Pro-Flite
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Karl Stefan Memorial Airport (OFK), Norfolk, NETo Millard Airport (MLE), Omaha, NE
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Two witnesses reported seeing an airplane matching the description of the accident airplane flying in the area of the departure airport at very low altitudes about 90 minutes before the accident flight. One witness described the flight profile as similar to "crop-duster type operations, with multiple low-altitude passes." Another witness reported that the airplane departed the airport and climbed to about 1,000 feet and then made a gradual eastbound descent to a low altitude and out of sight. He reported that the airplane reappeared in a very steep left bank and then descended out of sight again. About 3 miles east of the airport, the airplane impacted a 20-foot-high power line, which resulted in the vertical stabilizer separating from the top of the fuselage and the airplane becoming uncontrollable until it impacted terrain. Examination of the airframe and engine revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. A parallel set of high-tension power lines with large support poles was located about 1/2 mile east of the impacted power line. As the pilot flew the airplane at a low altitude eastbound, the high-tension power lines likely visually aligned (that is, came within the same line of sight) with the impacted power line. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot was focused on the more prominent high-tension power lines and did not observe the impacted power line.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to fly at a low altitude and his subsequent failure to see and avoid power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA241
- Event ID
- 20130428X11150
- Case number
- CEN13FA241
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2013-04-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5fa55d9ba8f494eef1e1dd28ffb499ccab657412c2d805da0757fbf84e044152; retrieved 2026-09-14T15:56:03.707Z.