CEN19LA297 · Piper J3C 65
Piper J3C 65 · Accident during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA297
- 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 J3C 65
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- N98278
- Operator
- Private Individal
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 73 years (built 1946)
- 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the float-equipped airplane had performed several takeoffs and landings before the accident takeoff. During the accident takeoff, he perceived a reduced climb performance that was exacerbated by turbulence. He maneuvered the airplane to avoid power lines, the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall, and impacted terrain. A postimpact fire ensued. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the empennage, fuselage, and both wings. The pilot stated that the floats were pumped before the flight, and that the engine did not show any indications of a malfunction. An examination of the wreckage did not reveal any anomalies. The airplane was operated near maximum gross weight, assuming no more than 8 gallons of fuel were onboard, and no water was in the floats. Although atmospheric conditions were conducive to the development of carburetor icing at glide power settings, whether carburetor icing contributed to the accident could not be determined. The reason for the reduced climb performance could not be determined.
Probable cause
The reduction in climb performance for reasons that could not be determined. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane after the loss of performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA297
- Event ID
- 20190902X34852
- Case number
- CEN19LA297
- 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, 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: eecb5653fb305fddfc29211e86f23df14eb41848e5fe8f0870c4317796feb26e; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:56:36.455Z.