CEN16LA029 · Piper PA 18-150
Piper PA 18-150 · Accident: loss of control on ground during landing
From Al Meyers Airport (3TE) to Al Meyers Airport (3TE)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA029
- 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 18-150
- 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
- N9029Y
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Al Meyers Airport (3TE), Tecumseh, MITo Al Meyers Airport (3TE), Tecumseh, MI
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1970)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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 › Action/decision
- 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 airline transport pilot reported that he made a normal wheel (two-point) landing; however, as the airplane traversed the airport's crossing runway, the airplane bounced into the air near midfield. He increased engine power after the bounce and subsequently made a full-stall (three-point) landing on the remaining runway. The airplane immediately veered left after the tailwheel contacted the runway. The airplane subsequently departed the left side of the runway into a grass field. The pilot reported that he was able to regain directional control and reestablish a ground track that was parallel to the runway before he attempted to abort the landing and take off from the grass field. Although he was able to get the airplane airborne, the pilot was unable to clear trees located along an airport perimeter road.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. Additionally, a postaccident airplane examination did not reveal any anomalies with the airplane's flight controls, brake system, or tailwheel assembly that would have prevented normal operation. The pilot reported that the accident likely could have been prevented if he had attempted to stop the airplane in the grass field instead of trying to abort the landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the landing and his subsequent improper decision to attempt an aborted landing after the airplane had departed the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA029
- Event ID
- 20151104X72139
- Case number
- CEN16LA029
- 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: 2fb2cfbda55a51ba16e6a595fb148cff483e16b7f77947066caf7c9d85dac2ca; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:56:50.220Z.