GAA16CA183 · Piper PA22 108
Piper PA22 108 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Pantego, NC to Pantego, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA183
- 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 PA22 108
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA22
- 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
- N5069Z
- Operator
- Malvin R. Respess · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pantego, NCTo Pantego, NC
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1961)
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that during the takeoff roll on a grass airstrip, a "strong burst of wind" blew his airplane out of control. The airplane departed the grass airstrip to the right, nosed over, and came to rest in a canal. He reported that he had not reached rotation when the loss of control occurred. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage, both wings, the vertical stabilizer, and the rudder.
The pilot verified that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
The pilot reported that he took off from the grass airstrip with a heading of 020 degrees about 1530 and the wind gust just before rotation came from the west. He reported that the wind velocity at the accident site was 15 knots gusting to 20 knots, and the wind direction was 320 degrees. The closest weather reporting facility to the accident location reported that from 1510 to 1530, the wind velocity varied from 15 to 17 knots with occasional gusts from 25 knots to 33 knots, and the wind direction was 290 degrees.
The Federal Aviation Administration has published the Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3A (2004). This handbook discusses operations in crosswind conditions and states in part:
Takeoffs and landings in certain crosswind conditions are inadvisable or even dangerous. If the crosswind is great enough to warrant an extreme drift correction, a hazardous landing condition may result. Therefore, the takeoff and landing capabilities with respect to the reported surface wind conditions and the available landing directions must be considered.
The headwind component and the crosswind component for a given situation can be determined by reference to a crosswind component chart. It is imperative that pilots determine the maximum crosswind component of each airplane they fly, and avoid operations in wind conditions that exceed the capability of the airplane.
Probable cause
A loss of directional control during the takeoff roll in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in a runway excursion, a nose over, and an impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to takeoff in gusting crosswind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA183
- Event ID
- 20160411X30308
- Case number
- GAA16CA183
- 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: 6a1a1085b4a25de84eaf360ed53dda4c22535434c26e0d42882efadede96bc1a; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:17:00.974Z.