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Atlas / NTSB / WPR23LA356

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR23LA356

2023-09-22 Eatonville, Washington, United States Airport · 2W3 None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N7955H

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

PIPER PA-12

Year of manufacture

1946 · 77 years old at event

Engine

LYCOMING 0-235 SERIES (115 hp)

Seats / Engines

3 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

19560716

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S AACDA7

Registrant of record

HUDSON TOM J

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during the takeoff roll, in gusty wind conditions, which resulted in a runway excursion.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that while taking off in a tailwheel-equipped airplane, he experienced a wind gust that lifted the left wing upwards and caused the right wing to contact the runway. Subsequently, he lost directional control of the airplane, resulting in a ground loop and impact with a berm. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Gusts-Effect on equipment
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Directional control-Not attained/maintained

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2023_WPR23LA356.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (runway excursion). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗