ERA14LA137 · Piper J3C-65
Piper J3C-65 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Macon Downtown Airport (MAC) to Macon Downtown Airport (MAC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14LA137
- 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
- N9026N
- Operator
- Guy Foulkes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Macon Downtown Airport (MAC), Macon, GATo Macon Downtown Airport (MAC), Macon, GA
- Aircraft age
- About 68 years (built 1946)
- 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Two witnesses reported that they saw the pilot performing touch-and-go landings. During takeoff, the airplane lifted off about halfway down the runway and began a right turn to the crosswind leg of the airport traffic pattern when it was about 100 feet above ground level (agl). As the airplane began the right turn, its bank angle increased from about 30 to 90 degrees, and its forward speed slowed. The airplane subsequently stalled, rolled right, and descended uncontrolled into a grassy area adjacent to the runway. Examination of the wreckage did not reveal any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The recorded wind near the accident site about the time of the accident was aligned with the departure runway at 11 knots gusting to 20 knots. Federal Aviation Administration guidance advises pilots not to turn to the crosswind leg until the airplane is beyond the departure end of the runway and has reached an altitude of 700 feet agl or higher. The pilot's turn at 100 feet agl while in the traffic pattern was too low and did not allow sufficient altitude to recover from an in-flight upset.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control while maneuvering in the traffic pattern at low altitude in gusting wind. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s improper decision to maneuver in the traffic pattern at a low altitude that did not allow for recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14LA137
- Event ID
- 20140227X35337
- Case number
- ERA14LA137
- 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: b9a1653b209e4ec55e03b03ba37e46cc375508d5996f65440977f4de1feca489; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:21:00.955Z.