ERA22LA283 · Piper PA-18A
High Wind Aviation Services Piper PA-18A · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Hartness State Airport (VSF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA283
- 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
- 0
- 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-18A
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-18
- 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
- N1927A
- Operator
- High Wind Aviation Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartness State Airport (VSF), Springfield, VTTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 70 years (built 1952)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the tailwheel equipped, high-wing airplane stated that he descended over the river and flew a low reconnaissance flight over the water to find a suitable floatplane landing site for the future. A witness, who was located on a boat ramp, recorded the airplane as it flew over the water at an altitude of about 10 to 20 ft. The airplane banked and turned as it followed the contours of the river while on a southern heading before disappearing out of view about a mile away as it made another turn around a bend in the river. The airplane continued to fly south over the water. According to the pilot, he initiated a climb back toward cruising altitude well before reaching a set of power lines spanning the river. The pilot reported then hearing an “extreme bang” followed by a loss of engine power. His attempts to troubleshoot were unsuccessful, and he reported that he attempted to land on a field adjacent to the river but impacted the power lines as he was turning onto final approach. The power lines were about 30 to 40 feet over the water and spanned the width of the river. They were neither physically marked nor required to be marked, but they were depicted on the sectional area chart for that area. Postaccident examination of the engine did not reveal any discrepancies that would preclude normal engine operation. While the magnetos were worn down at the block electrodes, they produced spark when tested. A carburetor icing chart was used to determine icing probability, yielding a potential for serious icing at glide power based on the weather conditions at the time. However, the nearest available weather used for this analysis was from an airport 7.5 nautical miles (nm) away, and it is likely that the pilot maintained sufficient power during maneuvering and his climb. Based on this information, no evidence supporting the reported loss of engine power was found during the course of the investigation. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot did not climb sufficiently before reaching of the power lines, which resulted in an in-flight collision with the power lines and impact with the river.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to see and avoid power lines while maneuvering at low altitude.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA283
- Event ID
- 20220623105311
- Case number
- ERA22LA283
- 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: fa3760c9b0b344cc8f76315bf6c56579fd13721ecb202b7e2c139f9425c74df2; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:22:03.783Z.