WPR20CA088 · Piper PA-28-181
CAE Oxford Aviation Academy Phoenix Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of control on ground during takeoff
From Falcon Field (FFZ) to Falcon Field (FFZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR20CA088
- 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-28-181
- 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
- N4400F
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZTo Falcon Field (FFZ), Mesa, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2019)
- 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
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor reported that she briefed the soft-field takeoff procedure with the student pilot while holding short for the active runway. After the flight was cleared for takeoff, the student aligned the airplane with the runway centerline, advanced the throttle to the full-power position, and released aft pressure from the yoke. During the ground roll, the instructor briefly lost sight of the runway, and when the runway reappeared, she saw the airplane rapidly veering left. The instructor applied full right rudder and right aileron, but the airplane continued veering left. Unable to stop the turn, the instructor reduced engine power but quickly restored it with the intent of flying the airplane back to the runway because the airplane had become airborne. However, the airplane then rolled left, the stall horn sounded, and the airplane touched down on the taxiway and impacted a parked airplane. The right wing and left aileron sustained substantial damage. The instructor and student reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that could have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's failure to maintain directional control and the flight instructor's inadequate remediation during a short-field takeoff, which resulted in impact with a parked airplane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR20CA088
- Event ID
- 20200206X45743
- Case number
- WPR20CA088
- 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: fc182c9be85f3c24c78914cd2b3c879f90985ec8693062a593af89a9324d6f72; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:03:13.682Z.