ERA18LA070 · Piper PA32R 300
Piper PA32R 300 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Florida Keys Marathon International Airport (MTH) to Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA070
- 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 PA32R 300
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA32
- 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
- N47863
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Florida Keys Marathon International Airport (MTH), Marathon, FLTo Winter Haven Regional Airport - Gilbert Field (GIF), Winter Haven, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 41 years (built 1977)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot reported that the airplane "was performing well and didn't have any issues" during the attempted takeoff. When the airplane reached about 60 knots during the takeoff roll, the nosewheel lifted off the runway, and the airplane began immediately turning left. The pilot attempted to arrest the turn with rudder and aileron control inputs, but the airplane continued to turn left, exited the runway, and impacted trees.
Given that the airplane had been performing as expected initially, it is likely that the pilot failed to adequately compensate for the airplane's natural left turning tendencies due to torque effects during the attempted takeoff, which resulted in a loss of directional control.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA070
- Event ID
- 20180125X54359
- Case number
- ERA18LA070
- 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: 0b6ae9679fe5e8bc74639fdfdb9ce520559bfe4be0fd94d706bcec5902a58d37; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:21:58.564Z.