NTSB Factual Report

On November 3, 2017, about 0900 mountain daylight time, a Piper PA-18-150, N4393Z, impacted mountainous terrain about 25 miles south of Murphy, Idaho. The pilot/owner was fatally injured, and the passenger received serious injuries. The airplane was substantially damaged. The airplane was registered to the owner and operated under the provision of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91, as a personal cross-country flight that was departing from a private dirt strip and was en route to Boise Air Terminal/Gowen Field (BOI), Boise, Idaho. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight and no flight plan had been filed.

According to a witness, this was a flight of two, with the intent of flying over the owner's property spotting for elk. The flight had originally departed from BOI about 0730. They flew toward the owner's property, and were flying in the area for about 1.5 hours, when they had to land due to the passenger getting airsick. They were on the ground for about 20 minutes, went back to the airplanes, and were departing at the time of the accident. The witness reported that he was the second airplane; he watched the accident airplane takeoff, establish a positive rate of climb, and when the airplane was about 150 feet above the ground, he saw the right wing drop with the pilot simultaneously keying the mike and saying "whoa." The airplane's nose continued to drop, and the airplane impacted the ground in a nose-low near vertical attitude. The pilot of the second airplane removed both the pilot and passenger from the airplane and called 911.

Life Flight, Air Ambulance, from BOI was notified of the accident at 0905.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator-in-charge (IIC), an operations inspector from the Federal Aviation Administration, and representatives from Piper Aircraft and Textron Lycoming Engines responded to the accident site. The entire airplane came to rest at the accident site, inverted. The engine remained attached to the propeller assembly as well as the engine mounts. The engine mounts remained attached to the firewall. Both wings remained attached to the fuselage. The wings had uniform leading edge to trailing edge crush damage. The tail and empennage sections remained connected and attached to the fuselage and sustained minor damage.

The airplane was recovered to a secure facility for further examination.