The pilot reported that, while flying over the grass runway in Akron, Colorado, it appeared “rough but serviceable.”
During landing, he found the surface was extremely rough with tall weeds.
During the subsequent departure, acceleration was “less than normal” due to the vegetation. When the plane reached the pilot’s planned abort point for the runway, he realized that he had misjudged the abort point.
He initially thought his selected abort point was about 800 to 1,000 feet before the end of the runway, but it was about 100 to 200 feet before the end of the runway.
The airplane overran the runway, crossed a road, and hit a barbed wire fence.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and left wing.
The FAA Airport Facility Directory for the accident airport, in part, stated: “[Runways] not recommended for [takeoff or landing].”
Probable cause: The pilot’s improper preflight planning that did not identify the unserviceable runway; his subsequent decision to attempt to takeoff from the rough, grassy runway; and his selection of an abort point with insufficient runway remaining, which resulted in a runway overrun.
NTSB Identification: GAA18CA486
This August 2018 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
I once did the same thing. Back in the days I was actually beginning my aviation career, I owned a little Tcraft. I had found a mountain meadow up about a 30-degree slope that was a delight to land on. Took almost full power to continue taxiing on up to the top.
One day I decided to take my mother up there, and it had been a couple of months since I had been on it. Turned out it was late spring, and my landing was a little more firm than usual, because as usual, I “landed”: on the surface of the weeds. BUT THEY HAD GROWN UP TO ABOUT 4′ !! My plane was covered with chewed-up weed splatters taxiing on up to the top.
However, the takeoff was not the same as this man’s. Because it didn’t really matter whether i lifted off or not. The end of this strip was a vertical wall down to the beach 2,000′ below. I could fall off, and then start flying. That was 55 years ago. Ahh, memories! The Good Old Days.
PS I was a Jet Fighter Crew Chief on F-101’s & -106’s at the time. i used to occasionally take one of my Air Force pilot friends flying in my plane, after they had taken me for a ride in theirs. That was back in the days when Crew Chief’s were expected to fly when the opportunity was available. I delighted in waking them up from their passed-out state after landing on the mountain meadow. And again after falling off the edge of the cliff. Which, of course, I always accentuated by a totally unnecessary Zero-G dive after passing the cliff edge.
That was back in the days when flying was FUN! I have been supersonic 13 times, actually in control twice. And Oxnard had a 9,000′ runway. Once, when we cleared the end on takeoff, we had 18,000′ of altitude. F-101 on a supersonic mission. The flight took 14 minutes. We burned off 40,000 lbs of fuel on that one.
3% of the world are assholes. .5% of airplane drivers are idiots. Sometimes these two rules apply to the same person. There is no helping the combination person. And they both need to be treated the same way, –exactly as they deserve. And DO NOT allow either type to destroy your enjoyment of all the rest of us.
PS. There are a lot of airplane drivers out there, as pilots fly taildraggers. But, that doesn’t mean the airplane drivers are idiots. Just “uninformed” as to the proper type plane to fly. To actually be pilots.
Not sure of this pilots experience, but non-paved runways generally require a bit more expertise and technique than even short paved surfaces. Running the Aircraft back and forth a few times to flatten a path for departure would have been in order, or even walking through the weeds to knock them down. Easy for me to say, hindsight be 20-20 and all.
Still, landing on a grass or rough strip opens entire worlds of aviation experience. Limiting yourself to a 5000×100 paved runway, might get kinda dull after a while.
Yeah. No, really…THIS is really six inches…
FAA: “[Runways] not recommended for [takeoff or landing].”
Pilot: “It’s against the law for them to tell me I can’t use an airport for aviation purposes! I’ll show those Commies!”
I think what he mistook was thinking he could get the gear out of the weeds……in just a few more feet!!
Sometimes the little train can’t…😆
I have done exactly this kind of takeoff, in 4′ high weeds. You are exactly right. Getting airborne is just the very difficult first step, and then when barely airborne with NO airspeed, you have to struggle to get the wheels up through the rest of the weeds. I had a vertical cliff off the end of my strip, –no problem. This guy? This was just plain stupid. An airplane driver, not a pilot.
He mistook 100 feet for 800 feet? Yeah, sure he did. I can just see the Fed’s eyes rolling on that one.
There’s a simple explanation; he was looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.