Narrative:

During the takeoff roll just prior to rotation while leaving a nearby airport to return home the pilot seat became unlatched and rolled to the most aft position. As the seat rolled back I momentarily lost directional control of the aircraft and it turned towards the edge of the runway. As I started to regain control of the aircraft it was heading directly towards a runway edge light and all I could do was cut power and swerve enough to hit the runway light with the left landing gear. The damage to the aircraft does not appear to anywhere near accident status and this report is not about the damage. What I want to report is the procedures and decision making before and after this situation. Upon preparing to start the aircraft I believe I double checked to make sure the seat was secure because I have seen the pilot seat not latch securely prior to startup in many aircraft. Now I can see that checking the security of the pilot seat not only needs to be a checklist item but needs to be an item to have checked by a mechanic if there is any uncertainty about how it latches. After returning to the ramp I looked over the aircraft to determine if it was damaged. All I could find was what at first appeared to be a quarter sized paint scrape on the underside of the left wing in front of the landing gear and a few inches of the front edge of the fiberglass gear door appeared to have been hit and scuffed. Since I was at an airport with no services I tried to determine if the damage was enough to immediately ground the aircraft or if it was safe to fly. Upon that initial inspection I determined that the damage was only superficial (scratch paint and some scuffing). I also checked the seat and made sure it would stay in place. Sure that the aircraft was safe to safe fly I then departed the airport and returned the short distance to my home base without incident. After inspecting the airplane further at my home base I discovered that the air pressure during the short flight had caused the front edge of the fiberglass gear door to separate a little making the damage look a little worse than when I had first looked at it. I also noted that the small scrape under the wing was also a slight quarter sized dent. This made me think that it would have been prudent to wait a little longer before trying to access the possible damage to the aircraft and deciding whether or not to fly it home. It is easy to see now that in this type of situation it is possible to miss things and not think of all the options and resources if you try to make decisions to soon after the situation occurred.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: PA28 pilot reports a runway excursion during takeoff when the pilot seat slides back; causing damage to the aircraft and a runway light.

Narrative: During the takeoff roll just prior to rotation while leaving a nearby airport to return home the pilot seat became unlatched and rolled to the most aft position. As the seat rolled back I momentarily lost directional control of the aircraft and it turned towards the edge of the runway. As I started to regain control of the aircraft it was heading directly towards a runway edge light and all I could do was cut power and swerve enough to hit the runway light with the left landing gear. The damage to the aircraft does not appear to anywhere near accident status and this report is not about the damage. What I want to report is the procedures and decision making before and after this situation. Upon preparing to start the aircraft I believe I double checked to make sure the seat was secure because I have seen the pilot seat not latch securely prior to startup in many aircraft. Now I can see that checking the security of the pilot seat not only needs to be a checklist item but needs to be an item to have checked by a mechanic if there is any uncertainty about how it latches. After returning to the ramp I looked over the aircraft to determine if it was damaged. All I could find was what at first appeared to be a quarter sized paint scrape on the underside of the left wing in front of the landing gear and a few inches of the front edge of the fiberglass gear door appeared to have been hit and scuffed. Since I was at an airport with no services I tried to determine if the damage was enough to immediately ground the aircraft or if it was safe to fly. Upon that initial inspection I determined that the damage was only superficial (scratch paint and some scuffing). I also checked the seat and made sure it would stay in place. Sure that the aircraft was safe to safe fly I then departed the airport and returned the short distance to my home base without incident. After inspecting the airplane further at my home base I discovered that the air pressure during the short flight had caused the front edge of the fiberglass gear door to separate a little making the damage look a little worse than when I had first looked at it. I also noted that the small scrape under the wing was also a slight quarter sized dent. This made me think that it would have been prudent to wait a little longer before trying to access the possible damage to the aircraft and deciding whether or not to fly it home. It is easy to see now that in this type of situation it is possible to miss things and not think of all the options and resources if you try to make decisions to soon after the situation occurred.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.