WPR18FA228 · Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
Pietenpol AIRCAMPER · Accident
From Montezuma Airport (19AZ) to Montezuma Airport (19AZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR18FA228
- 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
- 2 · 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
Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
- Aircraft type
- Pietenpol AIRCAMPER
- 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
- N88HK
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montezuma Airport (19AZ), Camp Verde, AZTo Montezuma Airport (19AZ), Camp Verde, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 30 years (built 1988)
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger departed on a local area flight. When the flight did not return a search was initiated and the wreckage was located later in the evening in hilly, uneven desert terrain. The wreckage debris field was contained within about a 10-foot radius of the main wreckage. All flight control surfaces remained attached and flight control continuity was established. The wing assembly was deformed in the middle section with the left portion of the wing pushed up and over the main spar; the right wing was pushed down. It is likely that the airplane was in an uncontrolled attitude at the time of impact with terrain. A visual examination of the engine revealed no holes in the engine case. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed carbon buildup in the cylinder barrels and piston faces and worn spark plugs. The wooden propeller remained attached to the crankshaft and engine. There were no mechanical anomalies revealed that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
Loss of control for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the airframe and engine revealed no mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR18FA228
- Event ID
- 20180819X22149
- Case number
- WPR18FA228
- 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, cause areas. 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: b7da8a6ed2c239276a2afb1a35a309db234c23b988858cc17c744955571c9cf9; retrieved 2026-09-15T06:46:24.282Z.