ERA13LA337 · Piper PA-28-181
Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From Columbus Airport (CSG) to Columbus Airport (CSG)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA337
- 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
- N371JB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Columbus Airport (CSG), Columbus, GATo Columbus Airport (CSG), Columbus, GA
- 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 · rejected 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
- Runway excursion
- 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
Another pilot reported that she had aborted a takeoff on a previous flight in the accident airplane when she felt that the engine was not developing sufficient power. The accident pilot subsequently arrived at the airport, they "checked everything again," and he attempted to take off. However, both pilots again "felt the same thing," and the accident pilot aborted that takeoff attempt. The accident pilot subsequently attempted to take off again, but, after feeling that the engine was not developing enough power, he decided to land straight ahead. During the landing, the airplane bounced once and overran the runway end; it then pivoted 180 degrees before coming to a stop. The accident pilot also indicated that he and the other pilot originally thought that there was an airspeed indication problem. The accident pilot looked at the pitot head after his first aborted takeoff and noticed debris, which he removed. He then performed a high-speed taxi test to ensure that the airspeed indicator was functioning properly before the final takeoff attempt. The airplane was sold for parts before it could be further examined for possible performance-related anomalies.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed decision to abort the takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the airplane's perceived lack of performance for reasons that could not be determined due to insufficient information.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA337
- Event ID
- 20130729X70726
- Case number
- ERA13LA337
- 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: dd2a440cbc36dbbeb82c760a65718c62ef107ca5359199eed84123f4583d36c1; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:22:22.636Z.