CEN26LA137 · Piper PA-12
Piper PA-12 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA137
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
- Not recorded
Piper PA-12
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-12
- 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
- N2511M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 80 years (built 1946)
- 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 with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On March 7, 2026, about 1323 central standard time, a Piper PA-12, N2511M, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Lockhart, Texas. The pilot and passenger sustained minor injuries. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. The flight instructor reported that the airplane had about 25 gallons of fuel on board and the weight of the airplane was about 1,700 pounds. His student was on his last day of tailwheel endorsement training, and they were conducting two and three-point takeoff and landings. The instructor had checked the weather at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (KAUS), Austin, Texas, and noticed the winds were coming from the north. He stated winds were calm at Lockhart after looking at the windsock. They had made a full stop landing to the south on the grassy area between runway 18 and the taxiway. After the full stop landing, the instructor estimated that they had 900-1,000 feet of runway remaining. The instructor stated the airplane routinely takes off in 700-800 feet of runway. He opted to have the student perform the takeoff from this location. During the takeoff they heard a loud bang right after rotation. The airplane “wobbled” to the right and dipped down and the instructor pulled back. They did a three-point landing but collided with a fence and a tree resulting in substantial damage to the wings and fuselage. A review of recorded winds from a privately operated weather station in Lockhart, TX, showed the wind was out of the south but shifted to the west and then the north close to the time of the accident. The wind from the north was 10-15 knots with gusts between 15-20 knots. The airplane was equipped with a Lycoming O-320-A2B engine, tundra tires, and a Sensenich propeller. The airplane was also equipped with two video cameras. One mounted on the right wing looking towards the cockpit and one mounted in the upper right corner of the windscreen looking at the two pilots. The video provided shows the landing before the accident and the takeoff accident itself. The video was retained by the NTSB and will be reviewed in further detail.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA137
- Event ID
- 20260309202619
- Case number
- CEN26LA137
- 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. 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: e0b6689115bd2f6b18f41eb493ee7a70b5b634a2bc43aaa3960bbbd070b63d1a; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:56:35.302Z.