WPR23LA329 · Piper PA-28-180
Piper PA-28-180 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Kanab Municipal Airport (KKNB) to General Dick Stout Field (1L8)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR23LA329
- 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-28-180
- 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
- N33094
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kanab Municipal Airport (KKNB), Kanab, UTTo General Dick Stout Field (1L8), Hurricane, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1975)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 departed from a local airport with the airplane 50 lbs under its maximum gross weight of 2,500 pounds. During takeoff, the pilot selected two notches of flaps and began the takeoff roll with full power. The airplane lifted off but would not gain airspeed. The pilot retracted the flaps one notch at a time and the airplane began to descend. The pilot lowered the nose to gain airspeed to clear a set of powerlines; after he pulled up to clear the powerlines, the airplane impacted a road just beyond the airport perimeter, breaching a fence and coming to rest in a hay field. The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings. Postaccident examination of the airplane and engine revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operation. The engine was run on a test stand and ran smoothly during the operational check, with no unusual indications. Audio provided from a nearby surveillance camera confirmed the engine was developing power until shortly before the crash. The reason for a reduction of power prior to impact could not be determined. The airplane was able to become airborne in ground effect; however, once the airplane left ground effect, the high density altitude, greater induced drag, and reduction of flaps likely rendered the airplane incapable of sustaining flight outside of ground effect.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to take off in high density altitude conditions, which resulted in a loss of control and subsequent impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR23LA329
- Event ID
- 20230831192970
- Case number
- WPR23LA329
- 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: d721f777c31ddbc6fcd82d56266abed97bc01fbb505f4c089cf448f2cfb6cf88; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:04:02.950Z.