SEA98LA112

While performing touch-and-go landings on the 1,100 foot gravel airstrip, the pilot landed long, and did not lift off again until he was near the departure end of the runway. After liftoff, the pilot attempted to get the aircraft to climb fast enough to miss the fence just off the end of the runway. The density altitude was 7,800 feet.

On June 27, 1998, approximately 2000 mountain daylight time, an Aviat Husky A-1, N7XJ, collided with a fence at a private airstrip on the Triple R Ranch, about 14 miles south of Livingston, Montana. The private pilot and his passenger were not injured, but the aircraft, which was owned and operated by the pilot, sustained substantial damage. The 14 CFR Part 91 personal pleasure flight, which departed Bozeman, Montana, about an hour earlier, was being operated in visual meteorological conditions. No flight plan had been filed, and the ELT, which was activated by the impact, was turned off at the scene.

According to the pilot, after he arrived at the Triple R Ranch strip, he elected to perform a few touch-and-go landings prior to terminating the flight. He said that the first two went fine, but that on the third one, he landed long and didn't get the aircraft airborne until it was near the end of the runway. Knowing that there was a fence just off the end of the runway, the pilot tried to get the aircraft to climb at a rate that would clear the fence, but the aircraft would not climb fast enough to clear it and struck one of the fence posts. A post-accident calculation determined that the density altitude at the time of the accident was approximately 7,800 feet. The length of the gravel runway was 1,100 feet.