GAA19CA550 · Pzl Okecie PZL104 M
Pzl Okecie PZL104 M · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
From Reno-Stead Airport (RTS) to Spanish Fork Municipal Airport/Woodhouse Field (SPK)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA19CA550
- 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
Pzl Okecie PZL104 M
- Aircraft type
- PZL Okecie PZL104
- 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
- N123T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno-Stead Airport (RTS), Reno, NVTo Spanish Fork Municipal Airport/Woodhouse Field (SPK), Spanish Fork, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2008)
- 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 in flight
- 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 › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel equipped airplane reported that prior to departure, while he refueled the airplane and taxied to the runway, the wind was "picking up and gusting" but "were comfortably within [his] personal and aircraft limits." During takeoff, as he "rolled on the power," the right wing started to lift so he corrected with full control input left but the airplane rolled to the right and impacted terrain. The pilot added that he did not get a wind check
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings and fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The airport's automated weather observation station reported that, about the time of the accident, the wind was 220° at 24 knots, gusting to 38 knots. The airplane was departing from runway 26.
According to the manufacturer's Pilot's Operating Handbook for an unmodified airplane, the maximum demonstrated crosswind is 11.7 knots.
The steady state crosswind component for the accident flight was 15 knots, with gusting winds, the crosswind component for the accident flight was 24 knots.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain bank control during takeoff in gusting crosswind conditions, resulting in a loss of control in flight and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA19CA550
- Event ID
- 20190916X74851
- Case number
- GAA19CA550
- 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: ac2e4c14ebc546f0995a6cd5d7a3c6631bc7721e28df437558d5328398640b2e; retrieved 2026-09-16T10:06:18.297Z.