Laukaa air accident
Private Piper J3C-65 Cub Mod · Crash
From Riitakorpi private aviation area to Lapland
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17WA279
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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 J3C-65 Cub Mod
- Aircraft type
- Piper J3
- 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
- OH-PAD
- Operator
- private
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Riitakorpi private aviation areaTo Lapland
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The Laukaa air accident occurred in Lievestuore, Laukaa, on Wednesday 19 July 2017 at 11:03, when a Piper Cub Mod light aircraft attempting to land fell into a forest in the Haanlatvanniemi area after its altitude and speed dropped too much. The pilot, who was alone on board, was killed in the accident. The Safety Investigation Authority took responsibility for investigating the accident and identified as causes, among other things, the tailwind prevailing during the landing and the overload on the aircraft.
Accident
The Piper's pilot began the approach towards the land area after learning that the Kitfox's pilot was off the runway. Possibly because of rain coming from the west, the pilot used a narrower than normal approach circuit towards the runway. The aircraft had an altitude of 190 metres, and during the turn the altitude decreased by about 40 metres. The base turn should have been considerably wider for the aircraft to be able to line up with the runway. The pilot also possibly formed a visual misjudgement of his speed.
When the aircraft began to turn towards the runway, its height above the trees was 70 metres. The aircraft's speed decreased only to about 100 kilometres per hour, and the aircraft began to descend rapidly as the sink rate increased. At its lowest, the aircraft flew towards the runway at an estimated speed of only 62 kilometres per hour, which was close to, if not even below, the stall speed that the aircraft had given the conditions. The aircraft's overload also contributed to the decrease in speed.
The aircraft's sink rate was already so high that before the aircraft managed to turn towards the runway, its wing struck the top of a 25-metre-tall birch and broke it off. After this the pilot increased engine power, momentarily raised the aircraft's speed and began making rapid evasive movements to raise the aircraft, but this happened too late as the aircraft began to stall asymmetrically. The aircraft flew another 110 metres, struck three trees and crashed into the ground.
The aircraft struck the ground on its left side, almost upside down, at 11:03:03 local time, eight minutes after departure, seven metres from the broken trees. Auditory observations were reported of the aircraft's crash and the power increase that preceded it.
The accident site is located in a forest at Haanlatvanniemi, 350 metres west of the Riitakorpi aviation area.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Safety Investigation Authority took responsibility for the accident investigation, and the police assisted in the investigations. An autopsy was performed on the Piper's pilot at Tampere University Hospital, in which no indications of illnesses, drugs or alcohol were found.
In addition to the direct causes of the accident, attention was paid to the small size of the runway on the private land area, which was found to be very high-risk. The actions of the rescue authorities also received criticism in the investigation, since although the search had been delayed, the police did not begin a ground search despite a person possibly being in danger to their health.
Causes of the accident
Many factors were identified as the main causes of the accident, one significant one being the aircraft's considerable overweight. There were 18.5 kg of items in the aircraft's baggage compartment, although the maximum amount was 9 kg. The aircraft's takeoff weight on the accident flight was 616 kg. The overweight was 63 kg, including possible loose items in the cockpit. Added to this was the fact that the left turn performed by the Piper's pilot before the moment of the accident lowered the threshold for the aircraft stalling, which for the accident aircraft was, according to the investigation, about 70 km/h. Because this turn was much shorter than normal, it reduced altitude and speed. The aircraft was, in addition, flying with a tailwind at the time of landing. According to the investigation, the increase in speed relative to the ground caused by the tailwind may have led to an erroneous reduction of power.
According to the investigation, the Piper pilot's attention had been focused elsewhere, and he possibly misinterpreted his speed from his surroundings. He did not notice that his own airspeed was too low while he was concentrating on observing Riitakorpi, and the aircraft had no stall warning device. It is possible that loose items in the cockpit also interfered with his flying.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Finnish Wikipedia article “Laukaan lento-onnettomuus” (revision 23977451, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
On July 19, 2017, about 0903 coordinated universal time, a Piper J3C-65 airplane, Finnish registration OH-PAD, was destroyed when it collided with the trees and terrain near Laukaa, Finland. The pilot was fatally injured. The airplane departed a private airstrip near Laukaa, Finland, about 0855, and was returning to that same airstrip when it collided with trees and terrain.
This investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the Finnish government. Any further information may be obtained from:
Safety Investigation Authority, Finland.
Ratapihantie 9, 00520 Helsinki, Finland
tel. +358 2956 66870 fax. +358 9876 4375
This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information released by, or obtained from, the BEA of France.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Finnish Wikipedia article: Laukaan lento-onnettomuus
- Article
- Laukaan lento-onnettomuus
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 23977451 · 2026-05-01 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q56402771
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record CEN17WA279
- Event ID
- 20170724X02627
- Case number
- CEN17WA279
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- fi Wikipedia article "Laukaan lento-onnettomuus" (page 1456541, revision 23977451), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case CEN17WA279 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record CEN17WA279
- Operation
- operator given as a private owner in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Laukaa air accident" and NTSB case CEN17WA279, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.