CEN18LA052 · Piper PA 28R-200
Piper PA 28R-200 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Central Wyoming Regional Airport (RIW) to Stanford Field (U12)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA052
- 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 28R-200
- 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
- N550D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Central Wyoming Regional Airport (RIW), Riverton, WYTo Stanford Field (U12), St. Anthony, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 47 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
- Takeoff · rejected 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 private pilot was attempting to take off and noted that the airplane's landing light was not working. Although the runway lights provided him with good visibility, his depth perception was limited. As the airplane approached the intersection with the crossing runway during the takeoff roll, the pilot thought that the airplane was approaching the end of the runway. He rotated the airplane to lift off, but it had not gained enough airspeed to become airborne, so he decided to reject the takeoff. As he reduced engine power, he lost directional control, and the airplane departed the left side of the runway.
The pilot stated that there were no issues with the airplane during the accident takeoff other than the inoperative landing light. He noted that a better review of the airport diagram and a working landing light might have improved his situational awareness during the takeoff.
Probable cause
The pilot's loss of directional control during the rejected takeoff. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's lack of familiarity with the airport runway configuration, which led to his premature attempt to take off, and the airplane’s inoperative landing light.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA052
- Event ID
- 20171215X12327
- Case number
- CEN18LA052
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2017-12-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4b184fa2b66507b51d11d4f69d464b927469746294328749da33ef2777cb1757; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:09:29.022Z.