CEN14CA231 · Piper J3C 65
Piper J3C 65 · Accident: loss of control on ground while taxiing
From Cambridge Municipal Airport (CDI) to Mettel Field (CEV)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14CA231
- 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
- N6245H
- Operator
- Lewis Arenzana
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cambridge Municipal Airport (CDI), Cambridge, OHTo Mettel Field (CEV), Connersville, IN
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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 on ground
- 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 › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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 reported that he decided to land at an en route airport to obtain fuel due to a stronger headwind than what was forecast for his route of flight. The pilot made a normal landing to the north and turned west off the runway onto the first taxi. He then made another turn to the north on the taxiway that paralleled the runway. As he taxied beyond a row of trees that were to the west, the upwind wing of the airplane lifted and the airplane flipped inverted. The rudder and left front wing strut were substantially damaged. The pilot stated he was using proper crosswind taxi technique, but was unable to keep the wing down. The wind conditions recorded at an airport located 37 miles away from the airport where the accident occurred were from 290 degrees at 16 knots gusting to 25 knots. The pilot reported the local wind condition at the time of the accident was similar.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to control the airplane while taxiing due to a strong crosswind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14CA231
- Event ID
- 20140507X95125
- Case number
- CEN14CA231
- 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: eb7af6e46e65e21593c591b1145a54be88dd60ccd8f6d7f8d5e0c5ca2cb9af77; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:36:15.593Z.