CEN21LA306 · Piper PA-28-151
Piper PA-28-151 · Accident: runway excursion during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to North Texas Regional Airport Perrin Field (KGYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA306
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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-28-151
- 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
- N181BW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo North Texas Regional Airport Perrin Field (KGYI), Denison, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1976)
- 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 · rejected 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
- Runway excursion
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and passenger planned to complete a combined short and soft field takeoff from a very rough grass runway, 2,375 ft in length. The pilot reported that she conducted a preflight inspection, calculated the airplane’s performance, and obtained weather information.
During the takeoff roll, the engine instruments “were in the green”, but the airplane did not gain airspeed as the pilot expected. The pilot initially reported that she realized the airplane wasn’t going to clear the trees, so she attempted to abort the takeoff. However, the airplane continued past the end of the runway and impacted several small trees before coming to a stop. She added that they lifted off in ground effect but had a decrease in power and landed back on the ground past the end of the runway.
An inspection of the airplane noted the right wing had separated from the fuselage and the left wing had substantial damage about mid-span.
Data extracted from the airplane’s engine monitor revealed one file that corresponded with the accident flight. A review of the data noted that the engine rpm increased from about 2,260 to 2,330 for a period of 30 seconds before sudden drop in engine rpm, and just before the data ended.
During an engine examination and test run, the engine started without hesitation or delay. Full throttle was applied, and the engine responded accordingly.
After the test run, the corresponding data were again extracted from the engine monitor. A review of the data noted the maximum engine rpm increased during the test from about 2,200 rpm to a high of 2,323 rpm, before the throttle was reduced. No abnormalities were noted during the engine test and the engine appeared to make rated power.
A review of the airplane’s performance tables indicated the takeoff roll could be 1,400 to 1,800 ft on a paved, level runway at maximum gross weight. The handbook’s data did not contain correction factors for a takeoff on a grass or rough surface runway.
Based on available evidence, it’s likely that the pilot did not get performance she expected during the takeoff from the rough, grass runway and aborted the takeoff too late to stop on the remaining runway.
Probable cause
The airplane’s degraded performance from the rough, grass runway surface and the pilot’s delayed decision to abort the takeoff resulting in a runway excursion.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA306
- Event ID
- 20210706103422
- Case number
- CEN21LA306
- 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: b14d6d1c81915b1d01cb8432ea87bae380c8b3f695a52f877de45647b0ba2be0; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:15:31.612Z.