WPR13LA308 · WSK PZL Mielec M-18B
Valley Air Service WSK PZL Mielec M-18B · Accident during takeoff
From Hubler Field (ID00) to Hubler Field (ID00)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA308
- 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
WSK PZL Mielec M-18B
- Aircraft type
- WSK PZL Mielec M-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
- N7643J
- Operator
- Valley Air Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hubler Field (ID00), Caldwell, IDTo Hubler Field (ID00), Caldwell, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 29 years (built 1984)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, when he applied power for takeoff on an aerial application flight, the airplane seemed to accelerate normally until the tailwheel lifted off the ground. He adjusted the power lever forward, but the torque did not seem to increase. The pilot stated that, at that point, it was "unlikely" that the airplane would lift off the ground before it reached the end of the runway but that it was "too late to abort" the takeoff. The pilot advanced the power lever full forward and held it there. He then jettisoned the applicant load and simultaneously pulled back on the control stick. The main landing gear wheels lifted off the ground but the tailwheel did not. The airplane subsequently collided with a fence and came to rest in a river. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed no evidence of mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation. An 8-knot tailwind existed at the time of the takeoff, which most likely resulted in the airplane's performance deficiency. The pilot further reported that "a more prompt recognition of the problem and an earlier decision to dump the load [of applicant] may possibly have prevented the aircraft from hitting the fence."
Probable cause
The pilot’s improper decision to continue the takeoff with a tailwind after he recognized a performance problem with the airplane and his delayed action to dump the chemical load.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA308
- Event ID
- 20130705X70647
- Case number
- WPR13LA308
- 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: 95c39bb4f86aad29316becccab53bc120f26f9f5c6d27824880f4ba4a7fe0527; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:07:03.616Z.