WPR14CA166 · Piper PA 18-135
Piper PA 18-135 · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Chukar Flats, OR (no airport) to Kent, OR (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA166
- 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 18-135
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-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
- N1394Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chukar Flats, OR (no airport)To Kent, OR (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 61 years (built 1953)
- 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 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel-equipped airplane had spent the morning practicing hilltop landings with a second airplane, as a flight of two. The hilltop where the accident occurred was the third landing location. The landing was uphill and uneventful, and after coming to a stop he parked the airplane, exited, and went for a hike. After returning, the first airplane departed downhill successfully, with the accident airplane in trail. The pilot reported that once airborne, the airplane drifted left, and did not respond fully to his control inputs. He further stated that a slight upslope air movement was present, and that the slipstream from the propeller of the leading airplane may have contributed to the loss of control. The left wingtip struck a tree and the airplane tumbled. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and the forward cabin during the accident sequence.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA166
- Event ID
- 20140412X94032
- Case number
- WPR14CA166
- 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: ff6988e21aa879f3bd5fcdc551709f358bc903d003632918ff3d22b6e31adcc4; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:30:12.162Z.