CEN16LA342 · Fairchild M 62A-3
Fairchild M 62A-3 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing during initial climb
From Madison, OH to Madison, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA342
- 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
Fairchild M 62A-3
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild M-62
- 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
- N47164
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Madison, OHTo Madison, OH
- Aircraft age
- About 74 years (built 1942)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- 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 commercial pilot and one passenger departed in a vintage airplane from a private airstrip. During the takeoff, the airplane would not climb with full engine power, and it collided with trees about 1/2 mile from the end of the runway.
An examination of the airplane revealed that the flaps were in the "down" position. However, the Before Takeoff checklist stated, "flaps up," for takeoff. The pilot reported that he normally took off with one notch of flaps. It is likely that the pilot's failure to follow the Before Takeoff checklist and his use of the wrong flaps setting for takeoff degraded the airplane's climb performance.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the Before Takeoff checklist and his improper use of flaps during takeoff, which degraded the airplane's climb performance and resulted in a collision with trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA342
- Event ID
- 20160901X13429
- Case number
- CEN16LA342
- 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: f18329dbbd45216373599cca8f42820f0dd6537ef3c0faf69a5a8ad18890fe22; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:12:56.660Z.