CEN14LA245 · Piper PA 28-181
Heartland Aviation Piper PA 28-181 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Yuma Municipal Airport (2V6) to Alliance Municipal Airport (AIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA245
- 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
- N9631C
- Operator
- Heartland Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma Municipal Airport (2V6), Yuma, COTo Alliance Municipal Airport (AIA), Alliance, NE
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1978)
- 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 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
- 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 reported that after referencing the airport windsock, which indicated a variable and gusty wind condition, he decided to takeoff on runway 16. The airplane was on takeoff roll when, before achieving liftoff, it encountered a wind gust that raised the right wing. The pilot was unable to correct for the wind gust before the airplane departed the left side of the runway and impacted a drainage ditch. He reported no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. A review of wind data readings, taken during the hour before the accident, established that the wind direction and speed had been from the north at 13-15 knots with recorded wind gusts between 20-26 knots. Additionally, the wind speed had increased throughout the same time period. The use of runway 16 would have resulted in a tailwind condition and an increased ground speed required to achieve a normal liftoff. The higher ground speed likely contributed to the pilot's inability to maintain directional control after the airplane encountered the wind gust.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control after the airplane encountered a wind gust during takeoff roll. Contributing to the accident was the pilot inadvertently using a runway that resulted in a gusty tailwind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA245
- Event ID
- 20140520X35646
- Case number
- CEN14LA245
- 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: 8d74285057ec053520138c9ef176acd1bd34a9746fc5690bf560d3990ce9d487; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:38:21.649Z.